....for friendships that are acquired by a price and not by greatness and nobility of character are purchased but are not owned, and at the proper moment they cannot be spent.

It is much safer for the prince to be feared than loved, but he ought to avoid making himself hated.

There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things..... Whenever his enemies have occasion to attack the innovator they do so with the passion of partisans, while the others defend him sluggishly so that the innovator and his party alike are vulnerable.

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.

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

Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.

A son could bear with great complacency, the death of his father, while the loss of his inheritance might drive him to despair.