...people are by nature fickle, and it is easy to persuade them of something, but difficult to keep them persuaded.

A sign of intelligence is an awareness of one's own ignorance.

Decide which is the line of conduct that presents the fewest drawbacks and then follow it out as being the best one, because one never finds anything perfectly pure and unmixed, or exempt from danger.

Men are always wicked at bottom unless they are made good by some compulsion.

For titles do not reflect honor on men, but rather men on their titles.

It is necessary that the prince should know how to color his nature well, and how to be a hypocrite and dissembler. For men are so simple, and yield so much to immediate necessity, that the deceiver will never lack dupes.

Anyone who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it may expect to be destroyed by it; for such a city may always justify rebellion in the name of liberty and its ancient institutions.