Those who either from imprudence or want of sagacity avoid doing so, are always overwhelmed with servitude and poverty; for faithful servants are always servants, and honest men are always poor; nor do any ever escape from servitude but the bold and faithless, or from poverty, but the rapacious and fraudulent.

In conclusion, the arms of others either fall from your back, or they weigh you down, or they bind you fast.

Good order makes men bold, and confusion, cowards.

The princes who have done great things are the ones who have taken little account of their promises.

God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.

Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces.

And if, to be sure, sometimes you need to conceal a fact with words, do it in such a way that it does not become known, or, if it does become known, that you have a ready and quick defense.