A battle that you win cancels all your mistakes.
One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.
Appear as you may wish to be.
Never lead your soldiers to battle if you have not first confirmed their spirit and known them to be without fear and ordered; and never test them except when you see that they hope to win.
Power is the pivot on which everything hinges. He who has the power is always right; the weaker is always wrong.
It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.
Good order makes men bold, and confusion, cowards.
Fear is secured by a dread of punishment.
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.
Although deceit is detestable in all other things, yet in the conduct of war it is laudable and honorable; and a commander who vanquishes an enemy by stratagem is equally praised with one who gains victory by force.
Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.
There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.
He who blinded by ambition, raises himself to a position whence he cannot mount higher, must thereafter fall with the greatest loss.
When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content.
It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.
When you disarm your subjects, however, you offend them by showing that either from cowardliness or lack of faith, you distrust them; and either conclusion will induce them to hate you.
There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.
Politics have no relation to morals.
He who has not first laid his foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but they will be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the building.