They have not any difficulties on the way up because they fly, but they have many when they reach the summit.

Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.

It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.

For that reason, let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding his state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by everybody because the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it; and in the world there are only the vulgar, for the few find a place there only when the many have no ground to rest on.

How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.

Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not to suffer.

Thus it is well to seem merciful, faithful, humane, sincere, religious, and also to be so; but you must have the mind so disposed that when it is needful to be otherwise you may be able to change to the opposite qualities.