It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free.

The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.

So long as the great majority of men are not deprived of either property or honor, they are satisfied.

Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.

A prince must be prudent enough to know how to escape the bad reputation of those vices that would lose the state for him, and must protect himself from those that will not lose it for him, if this is possible; but if he cannot, he need not concern himself unduly if he ignores these less serious vices.