In the first place, most princes apply themselves to the arts of war, in which I have neither ability nor interest, instead of to the good arts of peace. They are generally more set on acquiring new kingdoms by hook or by crook than on governing well those that they already have.

It's wrong to deprive someone else of a pleasure so that you can enjoy one yourself, but to deprive yourself of a pleasure so that you can add to someone else's enjoyment is an act of humanity by which you always gain more than you lose.

A pretty face may be enough to catch a man, but it takes character and good nature to hold him.

. . . the state of things and the dispositions of men were then such, that a man could not well tell whom he might trust or whom he might fear.

Laws could be passed to keep the leader of a government from getting too much power.

And it will fall out as in a complication of diseases, that by applying a remedy to one sore, you will provoke another; and that which removes the one ill symptom produces others.

By reason of gifts and bribes the offices be given to rich men, which should rather have been executed by wise men.