The Prince

you wish to please me, and to bring success and honour to yourself, do right and study, because others will help you if you help yourself."

Men will not look at things as they really are, but as they wish them to be—and are ruined

Men will not look at things as they really are, but as they wish them to be—and are ruined

For he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new. This lukewarm temper arises partly from the fear of adversaries who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who will never admit the merit of anything new, until they have seen it proved by the event.

Moses that he should find the people of Is­rael in Egypt en­slaved and op­pressed by the Egyp­tians, in or­der that they should be dis­posed to fol­low him so as to be de­livered out of bond­age.

knew so well how to con­ceal his mind that, by the me­di­ation of Signor Pagolo

he awaited an op­por­tun­ity to crush the Orsini, hav­ing scattered the ad­her­ents of the Co­lonna house.

For the first thing he weakened the Orsini and Co­lon­nesi parties in Rome, by gain­ing to him­self all their ad­her­ents who were gen­tle­men, mak­ing them his gen­tle­men, giv­ing them good pay, and, ac­cord­ing to their rank, hon­our­ing them with of­fice and com­mand in such a way that in a few months all at­tach­ment to the fac­tions was des­troyed and turned en­tirely to the duke.

while wish­ing to hold that and to ad­vance fur­ther, was hindered by two things: the one, his forces did not ap­pear loyal to him, the other, the good­will of France

A wise man ought al­ways to fol­low the paths beaten by great men, and to im­it­ate those who have been su­preme, so that if his abil­ity does not equal theirs, at least it will sa­vour of it.