Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.

Republics have a longer life and enjoy better fortune than principalities, because they can profit by their greater internal diversity. They are the better able to meet emergencies.

If the present be compared with the remote past, it is easily seen that in all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same passions as there always were.

The greatest remedy that is used against a plan of the enemy is to do voluntarily what he plans that you do by force.

For as laws are necessary that good manners be preserved, so there is need of good manners that law may be maintained.

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.

All the States and Governments by which men are or ever have been ruled, have been and are either Republics or Princedoms.