Cruelties should be committed all at once.

Results are often obtained by impetuosity and daring which could never have been obtained by ordinary methods.

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

Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.

If the chief party, whether it be the people, or the army, or the nobility, which you think most useful and of most consequence to you for the conservation of your dignity, be corrupt, you must follow their humor and indulge them, and in that case honesty and virtue are pernicious.

Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by the sense of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion.

The one who adapts his policy to the times prospers, and likewise that the one whose policy clashes with the demands of the times does not.