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.

To keep your actions and your plans secret always has been a very good thing . .. Marcus Crassus said to one who asked him when he was going to move the army: 'Do you believe that you will be the only one not to hear the trumpet?

For whoever conquers a free Town, and does not demolish it, commits a great Error, and may expect to be ruin 'd himself.

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

How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.

It is much safer for the prince to be feared than loved, but he ought to avoid making himself hated.

A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.