To ensure victory the troops must have confidence in themselves as well as in their commanders.

All who contribute to the overthrow of religion, or to the ruin of kingdoms and commonwealths, all who are foes to letters and to the arts which confer honour and benefit on the human race (among whom I reckon the impious, the cruel, the ignorant, the indolent, the base and the worthless), are held in infamy and detestation.

If the present be compared with the remote past, it is easily seen that in all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same passions as there always were.

Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.

Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear.

A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it according to the necessity of the case.

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