Then also pretexts for seizing property are never wanting, and one who begins to live by rapine will always find some reason for taking the goods of others, whereas causes for taking life are rarer and more quickly destroyed.

Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear.

Impetuosity and audacity often achieve what ordinary means fail to achieve.

When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content.

It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free.

No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.

He who has once begun to live by rapine always finds reasons for taking what is not his.