A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.

The people resemble a wild beast, which, naturally fierce and accustomed to live in the woods, has been brought up, as it were, in a prison and in servitude, and having by accident got its liberty, not being accustomed to search for its food, and not knowing where to conceal itself, easily becomes the prey of the first who seeks to incarcerate it again.

So far as he is able, a prince should stick to the path of good but, if the necessity arises, he should know how to follow evil.

Speaking generally, men are ungrateful, fickle, hypocritical, fearful odanger and covetous ogain.

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.

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

Every little advantage is of great moment when men have to come to blows.