It remains now to see what ought to be the rules of
conduct for a prince towards subject and friends.
And as I know that many have written on this point,
I expect I shall be considered presumptuous in mentioning
it again, especially as in discussing it I shall depart
from the methods of other people. But, it being
my intention to write a thing which shall be useful
to him who apprehends it, it appears to me more appropriate
to follow up the real truth of the matter than the
imagination of it; for many have pictured republics
and principalities which in fact have never been known
or seen, because how one lives is so far distant from
how one ought to live, that he who neglects what is
done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his
ruin than his preservation; for a man who wishes to
act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets
with what destroys him among so much that is evil.
Hence it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold
his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of
it or not according to necessity. Therefore,
putting on one side imaginary things concerning a prince,
and discussing those which are real, I say that all
men when they are spoken of, and chiefly princes for
being more highly placed, are remarkable for some
of those qualities which bring them either blame or
praise; and thus it is that one is reputed liberal,
another miserly, using a Tuscan term (because an avaricious
person in our language is still he who desires to
possess by robbery, whilst we call one miserly who
deprives himself too much of the use of his own);
one is reputed generous, one rapacious; one cruel,
one compassionate; one faithless, another faithful;
one effeminate and cowardly, another bold and brave;
one affable, another haughty; one lascivious, another
chaste; one sincere, another cunning; one hard, another
easy; one grave, another frivolous; one religious,
another unbelieving, and the like. And I know
that every one will confess that it would be most
praiseworthy in a prince to exhibit all the above
qualities that are considered good; but because they
can neither be entirely possessed nor observed, for
human conditions do not permit it, it is necessary
for him to be sufficiently prudent that he may know
how to avoid the reproach of those vices which would
lose him his state; and also to keep himself, if it
be possible, from those which would not lose him it;
but this not being possible, he may with less hesitation
abandon himself to them. 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.
