Never was anything great achieved without danger.
Women are the most charitable creatures, and the most troublesome. He who shuns women passes up the trouble, but also the benefits. He who puts up with them gains the benefits, but also the trouble. As the saying goes, there’s no honey without bees.
I desire to go to Hell and not to Heaven. In the former I shall enjoy the company of popes, kings and princes, while in the latter are only beggars, monks and apostles.
No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.
Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.
Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.
Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.
Gold will not always get you good soldiers, but good soldiers can get you gold.
A son can bear with equanimity the loss of his father, but the loss of his inheritance may drive him to despair.
Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.
When fortune wishes to bring mighty events to a successful conclusion, she selects some man of spirit and ability who knows how to seize the opportunity she offers.
Make no small plans for they have no power to stir the soul.
Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.
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.
Men generally decide upon a middle course, which is most hazardous, for they know neither how to be entirely good nor entirely bad.
It is often found that modesty and humility not only do no good, but are positively hurtful, when they are shown to the arrogant who have taken up a prejudice against you, either from envy or from any other cause.
A man who is used to acting in one way never changes; he must come to ruin when the times, in changing, no longer are in harmony with his ways.
I’m not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.
There is nothing that Nature seems to have inclined us to as much as society.