The prince must be a lion, but he must also know how to play the fox.

Good order and discipline in any army are to be depended upon more than courage alone.

Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.

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

It makes him hated above all things, as I have said, to be rapacious, and to be a violator of the property and women of his subjects, from both of which he must abstain.

War is just when it is necessary; arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms.

To know in war how to recognize an opportunity and seize it is better than anything else.