The nature of man is such that people consider themselves put under an obligation as much by the benefits they confer as by those they receive.

It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.

Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Anyone who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it may expect to be destroyed by it; for such a city may always justify rebellion in the name of liberty and its ancient institutions.

For as good habits of the people require good laws to support them, so laws, to be observed, need good habits on the part of the people.

States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them

Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.