“To understand the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to understand the nature of the prince, one must be of the people.”

Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate.

The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.

It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.

His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.

Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.

Benefits should be conferred gradually; and in that way they will taste better.

There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others.

Politics have no relation to morals.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.

Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.

No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.

Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.

Severities should be dealt out all at once, so that their suddenness may give less offense.

The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

You’re so earnest about morality that I hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath.

There is no gaming table in the world where loaded dice are tolerated, no athletic field where men must not start fair.

I think now that the young man must possess or teach himself, training himself, in infinite patience, which is to try and to try until it comes right.

The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.

We don’t know what’s around the corner – and we must do everything to ensure we get our country’s debts down, building our resilience so we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past.

We must close our eyes and invoke a new manner of seeing…a wakefulness that is the birthright of us all, though few put it to use.

When faith lays hold, impossibilities must yield.

Many men ridicule the idea that it can be scientifically handled. They tell us the unemployed have always been with us, and always must be. It is the oldest reason in the world for tolerating injustice and misery.