Cruelties should be committed all at once.

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

You have to be a prince to understand the people, and you have to belong to the people to understand the princes.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

And when he is obliged to take the life of any one, to do so when there is a proper justification and manifest reason for it; but above all he must abstain from taking the property of others, for men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.

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.

A wise man will see to it that his acts always seem voluntary and not done by compulsion, however much he may be compelled by necessity.