The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved.

In conclusion, the arms of others either fall from your back, or they weigh you down, or they bind you fast.

Minds are of three kinds: one is capable of thinking for itself; another is able to understand the thinking of others; and a third can neither think for itself nor understand the thinking of others. The first is of the highest excellence, the second is excellent, and the third is worthless.

Men are always averse to enterprises in which they foresee difficulties.

Men sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony

The princes who have done great things are the ones who have taken little account of their promises.

States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them