"...it is a base thing to look to others for your defense instead of depending upon yourself. That defense alone is effectual, sure, and durable which depends upon yourself and your own valor."

"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."

"Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it."

"Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved."

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things."

"War cannot be avoided; it can only be postponed to the other's advantage."

"Politeness is half good manners and half good lying."

"Desire, ignorance, and inequality-this is the trinity of bondage."

"God gave women intuition and femininity. Used properly, the combination easily jumbles the brain of any man I've ever met."

"It might be said that Lord Rosebery outlived his future by ten years and his past by more than twenty."

"All men, if they work not as in the great taskmaster's eye, will work wrong, and work unhappily for themselves and for you."

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."