Is it better to be loved or feared?

I hold strongly to this: that it is better to be impetuous than circumspect; because fortune is a woman and if she is to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her.

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.

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

A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it.

A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought… but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands.