There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.

One never finds anything perfectly pure and ... exempt from danger.

The nature of man is such that people consider themselves put under an obligation as much by the benefits they confer as by those they receive.

To know well the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to know well the nature of princes one must be of the people.

How laudable it is for a prince to keep good faith and live with integrity, and not with astuteness, every one knows. Still the experience of our times shows those princes to have done great things who have had little regard for good faith, and have been able by astuteness to confuse men's brains, and who have ultimately overcome those who have made loyalty their foundation.

Any harm you do to a man should be done in such a way that you need not fear his revenge.

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