Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.

Never was anything great achieved without danger.

Men are so stupid and concerned with their present needs, they will always let themselves be deceived.

Present wars impoverish the lords that win as much as those that lose.

For one change always leaves a dovetail into which another will fit.

War is a profession by which a man cannot live honorably; an employment by which the soldier, if he would reap any profit, is obliged to be false, rapacious, and cruel.

I assert once again as a truth to which history as a whole bears witness that men may second their fortune, but cannot oppose it; that they may weave its warp, but cannot break it. Yet they should never give up, because there is always hope, though they know not the end and more towards it along roads which cross one another and as yet are unexplored; and since there is hope, they should not despair, no matter what fortune brings or in what travail they find themselves.