The Prince

you wish to please me, and to bring success and honour to yourself, do right and study, because others will help you if you help yourself."

Men will not look at things as they really are, but as they wish them to be—and are ruined

Men will not look at things as they really are, but as they wish them to be—and are ruined

For he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new. This lukewarm temper arises partly from the fear of adversaries who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who will never admit the merit of anything new, until they have seen it proved by the event.

And again, he need not make him­self un­easy at in­cur­ring a re­proach for those vices without which the state can only be saved with dif­fi­culty, for if everything is con­sidered care­fully, it will be found that some­thing which looks like vir­tue, if fol­lowed, would be his ruin; whilst some­thing else, which looks like vice, yet fol­lowed brings him se­cur­ity and prosper­ity.

Mer­cen­ar­ies and aux­il­i­ar­ies are use­less and dan­ger­ous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are dis­united, am­bi­tious, and without dis­cip­line, un­faith­ful, vali­ant be­fore friends, cow­ardly be­fore en­emies; they have neither the fear of God nor fi­del­ity to men, and de­struc­tion is de­ferred only so long as the at­tack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the en­emy.

e must keep his hands off the prop­erty of oth­ers, be­cause men more quickly for­get the death of their father than the loss of their pat­ri­mony

There­fore a prince, so long as he keeps his sub­jects united and loyal, ought not to mind the re­proach of cruelty; be­cause with a few ex­amples he will be more mer­ci­ful than those who, through too much mercy, al­low dis­orders to arise, from which fol­low murders or rob­ber­ies;

But a man is not of­ten found suf­fi­ciently cir­cum­spect to know how to ac­com­mod­ate him­self to the change, both be­cause he can­not de­vi­ate from what nature in­clines him to do, and also be­cause, hav­ing al­ways prospered by act­ing in one way, he can­not be per­suaded that it is well to leave it; and, there­fore, the cau­tious man, when it is time to turn ad­ven­tur­ous, does not know how to do it, hence he is ruined; but had he changed his con­duct with the times for­tune would not have changed.

Never­the­less, not to ex­tin­guish our free will, I hold it to be true that For­tune is the ar­biter of one-half of our ac­tions,46 but that she still leaves us to dir­ect the other half, or per­haps a little less.

I com­pare her to one of those ra­ging rivers, which when in flood over­flows the plains, sweep­ing away trees and build­ings, bear­ing away the soil from place to place; everything flies be­fore it, all yield to its vi­ol­ence, without be­ing able in any way to with­stand it; and yet, though its nature be such, it does not fol­low there­fore that men, when the weather be­comes fair, shall not make pro­vi­sion, both with de­fences and bar­ri­ers, in such a man­ner that, rising again, the wa­ters may pass away by canal, and their force be neither so un­res­trained nor so dan­ger­ous. So it hap­pens with for­tune, who shows her power where valour has not pre­pared to res­ist her, and thither she turns her forces where she knows that bar­ri­ers and de­fences have not been raised to con­strain her.