How laudable it is for a prince to keep good faith and live with integrity, and not with astuteness, every one knows. Still the experience of our times shows those princes to have done great things who have had little regard for good faith, and have been able by astuteness to confuse men's brains, and who have ultimately overcome those who have made loyalty their foundation.

People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.

The state is not an organism capable of bringing either moral or material improvements to the populace...but merely a vehicle of power for the men and party in power.

One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.

The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.

There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.

If the chief party, whether it be the people, or the army, or the nobility, which you think most useful and of most consequence to you for the conservation of your dignity, be corrupt, you must follow their humor and indulge them, and in that case honesty and virtue are pernicious.