In respect to foresight and firmness, the people are more prudent, more stable, and have better judgement than princes.

One can say this in general of men: they are ungrateful, disloyal, insincere and deceitful, timid of danger and avid of profit...Love is a bond of obligation that these miserable creatures break whenever it suits them to do so; but fear holds them fast by a dread of punishment that never passes.

Power is the pivot on which everything hinges. He who has the power is always right; the weaker is always wrong.

One must be a fox to recognize traps and a lion to frighten wolves

And what physicians say about disease is applicable here: that at the beginning a disease is easy to cure but difficult to diagnose; but as time passes, not having been recognized or treated at the outset, it becomes easy to diagnose but difficult to cure. The same thing occurs in affairs of state; for by recognizing from afar the diseases that are spreading in the state (which is a gift given only to the prudent ruler), they can be cured quickly; but when, not having been recognized, they are not recognized and are left to grow to the extent that everyone recognizes them, there is no longer any cure.

Necessities can be many, but the one that is stronger is that which constrains you to win or to die.

Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.