The ends justifies the means.

Good order makes men bold, and confusion, cowards.

The end of the republic is to enervate and to weaken all other bodies so as to increase its own body.

You have to be a prince to understand the people, and you have to belong to the people to understand the princes.

Necessities can be many, but the one that is stronger is that which constrains you to win or to die.

Benefits should be conferred gradually; and in that way they will taste better.

Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by the sense of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion.