for men do easily part with their prince upon hopes of bettering their condition, and that hope provokes them to rebel; but most commonly they are mi… - Niccolò Machiavelli

For that reason, let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding his state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by everybody because the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it; and in the world there are only the vulgar, for the few find a place there only when the many have no ground to rest on.

... When Princes devote themselves rather to pleasure than to arms, they lose their dominions.

But above all he must refrain from seizing the property of others, because a man is quicker to forget the death of his father than the loss of his patrimony.