"Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions."

"A wise prince, therefore, ought to find a means by which his subjects will always in every sort and kind of circumstance have need of the state and of him, and then they will always be faithful to him…"

"It is necessary to be a fox to discover snares and a lion to terrify wolves."

"The Romans, in order to hold Capua, Alba, and Ostia, did not destroy them, but gave them their own laws and left them free, and they did not hold them without difficulty."

"It is much more difficult to injure one who is loved than one who is hated."