C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Machiavelli
A soldier ought to consider peace only as a breathing-spell, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes ability to execute, military plans.
For it is not titles that reflect honor on men, but men on their titles.
He who makes war his profession cannot be otherwise than vicious. War makes thieves, and peace brings them to the gallows.
Hence it happened that all the armed prophets conquered, all the unarmed perished.
I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself.
If the course of human affairs be considered, it will be seen that many things arise against which heaven does not allow us to guard.
It is a true observation of ancient writers, that as men are apt to be cast down by adversity, so they are easily satiated with prosperity, and that joy and grief produce the same effects. For whenever men are not obliged by necessity to fight they fight from ambition, which is so powerful a passion in the human breast that however high we reach we are never satisfied.
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.
It is the duty of a man of honor to teach others the good which he has not been able to do himself because of the malignity of the times, that this good finally can be done by another more loved in heaven.
Men are so simple, and yield so much to necessity, that he who will deceive will always find him who will lend himself to be deceived.
Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.
Men may second fortune, but they cannot thwart her.
The principal foundation of all states are good laws and good arms.
This is most true, and all history bears testimony to it, that men may second fortune, but they cannot thwart her,—they may weave her web, but they cannot break it.
Though fraud in all other actions be odious, yet in matters of war it is laudable and glorious, and he who overcomes his enemies by stratagem is as much to be praised as he who overcomes them by force.