Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not to suffer.

Is it better to be loved or feared?

Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.

There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious.

The end of the republic is to enervate and to weaken all other bodies so as to increase its own body.

I hold strongly to this: that it is better to be impetuous than circumspect; because fortune is a woman and if she is to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her.

With difficulty he is beaten who can estimate his own forces and those of his enemy.