He who would foresee what is to happen should look to what has happened: for all that is has its counterpart in time past.

Speaking generally, men are ungrateful, fickle, hypocritical, fearful odanger and covetous ogain.

Without doubt, ferocious and disordered men are much weaker than timid and ordered ones. For order chases fear from men and disorder lessens ferocity.

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.

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

Before all else, be armed.

And it will always happen that he who is not your friend will request your neutrality and he who is your friend will ask you to declare yourself by taking up arms. And irresolute princes, in order to avoid present dangers, follow the neutral road most of the time, and most of the time they are ruined.