(A ruler) cannot and should not keep his word when to do so would go against his interests or when the reason he pledged it no longer holds.

The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.

When settling disputes between his subjects, he should ensure that his judgement is irrevocable; and he should be so regarded that no one ever dreams of trying to deceive or trick him.

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.

The reformer has enemies in all who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order.

....nothing is so unhealthy or unstable as the reputation for power that is not based on one's own power.

The nature of man is such that people consider themselves put under an obligation as much by the benefits they confer as by those they receive.