Few Men Are Brave By Nature, But

For Government Consists In Nothing Else But So Controlling Subjects That They Shall Neither Be Able To, Nor Have Cause To Do [it] Harm.

It Is Necessary That The Prince Should Know How To Color His Nature Well, And How To Be A Hypocrite And Dissembler. For Men Are So Simple, And Yield So Much To Immediate Necessity, That The Deceiver Will Never Lack Dupes.

Some Princes, So As To Hold Securely The State, Have Disarmed Their Subjects, Others Have Kept Their Subject Towns Distracted By Factions...our Forefathers, And Those Who Were Reckoned Wise, Were Accustomed To Say That It Was Necessary To Hold Pistoia [an Italian City] By Factions And Pisa By Fortress, And With This Idea They Fostered Quarrels In Some Of Their Tributary Towns So As To Keep Possession Of Them The More Easily.

Men Shrink Less From Offending One Who Inspires Love Than One Who Inspires Fear.

So Long As The Great Majority Of Men Are Not Deprived Of Either Property Or Honor, They Are Satisfied.