“A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man.”

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.

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

A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.

Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces.

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.

Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.

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.

The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.

For among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible; which is one of those disgraceful things which a prince must guard against.

I’m not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.

The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned.

The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.

This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.

Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.

When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred.

I used to be very shy. When I first started, I had to go to a casting, and I had to go in a bikini.

Men throw broken things away, but God never uses anything until he first breaks it.

I would have walked on the waterBut I wasn’t fully insured.

And the BMA sent a writ my wayWith the very first leper I cured.

Well, I think just the fact that you are making your first film is a huge step.

Written poetry is different. Best thing is to see it in performance first, then read it. Performance is more provocative.

I do my best to tell a story whenever I write music because I want to paint the most vivid picture that tells a story whether a person is falling in love for the first time or going through a painful heartbreak.

The first two months were painful and they really tested my manhood because there were times I didn’t want to get up because I was in pain.