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.

One arises from a low to a high station more often by using fraud instead of force.

Politics have no relation to morals.

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

In truth, there never was any remarkable lawgiver amongst any people who did not resort to divine authority, as otherwise his laws would not have been accepted by the people; for there are many good laws, the importance of which is known to be the sagacious lawgiver, but the reasons for which are not sufficiently evident to enable him to persuade others to submit to them; and therefore do wise men, for the purpose of removing this difficulty, resort to divine authority.

He who has annexed them, if he wishes to hold them, has only to bear in mind two considerations: the one, that the family of their former lord is extinguished; the other, that neither their laws nor their taxes are altered, so that in a very short time they will become entirely one body with the old principality.

Good order and discipline in any army are to be depended upon more than courage alone.