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

He who is the cause of another's advancement is thereby the cause of his own ruin.

A prince who is not himself wise cannot be wisely advised. . . . Good advice depends on the shrewdness of the prince who seeks it, and not the shrewdness of the prince on good advice.

With difficulty he is beaten who can estimate his own forces and those of his enemy.

A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it.

Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.

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