The people resemble a wild beast, which, naturally fierce and accustomed to live in the woods, has been brought up, as it were, in a prison and in servitude, and having by accident got its liberty, not being accustomed to search for its food, and not knowing where to conceal itself, easily becomes the prey of the first who seeks to incarcerate it again.

Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.

Forgiveness proceeds from a generous soul.

The vulgar crowd always is taken by appearances, and the world consists chiefly of the vulgar.

The nature of man is such that people consider themselves put under an obligation as much by the benefits they confer as by those they receive.

So far as he is able, a prince should stick to the path of good but, if the necessity arises, he should know how to follow evil.

There are three kinds of minds: first those that attain insight and understanding of things by their own means, then those that recognize what is right when others explain it to them, and finally those that are capable of neither one nor the other.