“There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.”
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The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.
The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.