Men never do good unless necessity drives them to it; but when they are free to choose and can do just as they please, confusion and disorder become rampant.

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

The state is not an organism capable of bringing either moral or material improvements to the populace...but merely a vehicle of power for the men and party in power.

To know in war how to recognize an opportunity and seize it is better than anything else.

....it cannot be called ingenuity to kill one's fellow citizens, to betray friends, to be without faith, without mercy, without religion; by these means one can aquire power but not glory.

Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.

as the physicians say it happens in hectic fever, that in the beginning of the malady it is easy to cure but difficult to detect, but in the course of time, not having been either detected or treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to detect but difficult to cure