Neither the army nor the treasury, but friends, are the true supports of the throne; for friends cannot be collected by force of arms, nor purchased with money; they are the offspring of kindness and sincerity.

Everything destroyed is either resolved into the elements from which it came, or else vanishes into not-being. If things are resolved into the elements from which they came, then there will be others: else how did they come into being at all?

Advise well before you begin, and when you have maturely considered, then act with promptitude.

If fortune makes a wicked man prosperous and a good man poor, there is no need to wonder. For the wicked regard wealth as everything, the good as nothing. And the good fortune of the bad cannot take away their badness, while virtue alone will be enough for the good.

Neither soldiers nor money can defend a king but only friends won by good deeds, merit, and honesty.

Sovereignty is easily preserved by the very arts by which it was originally created. When, however, energy has given place to indifference, and temperance and justice to passion and arrogance, then as the morals change so changes fortune.

A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.