The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.

A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought… but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands.

Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.

A battle that you win cancels any other bad action of yours. In the same way, by losing one, all the good things worked by you before become vain.

Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years.

A battle that you win cancels all your mistakes.

Men are able to assist fortune but not to thwart her. They can weave her designs, but they cannot destroy them.