The forces of adversaries are more diminished by the loss of those who flee than of those who are killed.

It is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman.

For the mob is always impressed by appearances and by results, and the world is composed of the mob.

It is necessary that the prince should know how to color his nature well, and how to be a hypocrite and dissembler. For men are so simple, and yield so much to immediate necessity, that the deceiver will never lack dupes.

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.

The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.

Cruelties should be committed all at once.