There is nothing as likely to succeed as what the enemy believes you cannot attempt.

For the mob is always impressed by appearances and by results, and the world is composed of the mob.

The ends justifies the means.

It is better to be bold than too circumspect, because fortune is of a sex which likes not a tardy wooer and repulses all who are not ardent.

It may be observed, that provinces amid the vicissitudes to which they are subject, pass from order into confusion, and afterward recur to a state of order again; for the nature of mundane affairs not allowing them to continue in an even course, when they have arrived at their greatest perfection, they soon begin to decline.

In order not to annul our free will, I judge it true that Fortune may be mistress of one half our actions but then even she leaves the other half, or almost, under our control.

Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.