Never do an enemy a small injury.

Ability and perseverance are the weapons of weakness.

No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.

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

There is simply no comparison between a man who is armed and one who is not. It is simply unreasonable to expect that an armed man should obey one who is unarmed, or that an unarmed man should remain safe and secure when his servants are armed.

Change has no constituency.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.