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.

A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from snares, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves.

When men receive favours from someone they expected to do them ill, they are under a greater obligation to their benefactor.

Because there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.

Everyone who wants to know what will happen ought to examine what has happened: everything in this world in any epoch has their replicas in antiquity.

Never was anything great achieved without danger.

He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.