The Prince

by Niccolò Machiavelli

Therefore, a prince who has a city organized in this fashion and who does not make himself hated cannot be attacked.

The nature of men is such that they find themselves obligated as much for the benefits they confer as for those they receive.

We have said above that a prince must have laid firm foundations; otherwise he will necessarily come to ruin. And the principal foundations of all states, the new as well as the old or the mixed, are good laws and good armies. Since good laws cannot exist where there are no good armies, and where good armies exist there must be good laws,

They have no fear of God, and they keep no faith with men.

The reason for this is that they have no other love nor other motive to keep them in the field than a meagre salary, which is not enough to make them want to die for you.

Mercenary captains are either excellent men or they are not. If they are, you cannot trust them, since they will always aspire to their own greatness, either by oppressing you, who are their masters, or by oppressing others against your intent; but if the captain is without ability, he usually ruins you.

The prince must go in person and perform the office of captain himself.

We see from experience that only princes and republics armed with their own troops make very great progress, and that mercenaries cause nothing but damage.

A republic armed with its own citizens is less likely to come under the rule of one of its citizens than a city armed with foreign soldiers.

In short, with mercenaries the greatest danger is their reluctance to fight; with auxiliaries, their military virtue. A wise prince has always avoided these soldiers and has turned to his own troops. He has preferred to lose with his own troops rather than to win with those of others, judging that to be no true victory which has been gained by means of foreign troops.

But the poor judgement of men will begin something that seems good at the outset without noticing the poison concealed underneath,

that nothing is so unhealthy or unstable as the reputation for power that is not based upon one’s own forces’].

One’s own soldiers are those composed either of subjects or of citizens or your own dependants; all others are either mercenaries or auxiliaries.

A PRINCE, therefore, must not have any other object nor any other thought, nor must he adopt anything as his art but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art* befitting one who commands.

On the other hand, it is evident that when princes have given more thought to delicate refinements than to military concerns, they have lost their state.

Between an armed and an unarmed man there is no comparison whatsoever, and it is not reasonable for an armed man to obey an unarmed man willingly, nor for an unarmed man to be safe among armed servants: when the one is full of scorn and the other is suspicious, it is impossible for them to work well together.

Therefore, as was said, a prince who does not understand military matters, besides other misfortunes, cannot be esteemed by his own soldiers, nor can he trust them.

He should, therefore, never take his mind from this exercise of war, and in peacetime he must train him...

This can be done in two ways: first, through physical exercis...

Such knowledge is useful in two ways: first, one learns to know one’s own country and can better understand how to defend it; second, with the knowledge and experience of these terrains, one can easily comprehend the characteristics of any other site that it is necessary to explore for the first time.

Philopoemen, Prince of the Achaeans, is praised because in peacetime he thought of nothing except the ways of waging war.

As a result, because of these continuous reflections no unforeseen incident could arise when he was leading his troops, for which he did not have the remedy.

But as for study, the prince must read histories and in them consider the deeds of excellent men. He must see how they conducted themselves in wars. He must examine the reasons for their victories and for their defeats, in order to avoid the latter and to imitate the former.

Above all else, he must do as some eminent men before him have done, who elected to imitate someone who had been praised and honoured before them, and always keep in mind his deeds and actions: just as it is reported that Alexander the Great imitate...

A wise prince must follow such methods as these and never be idle in peaceful times, but he must turn them diligently to his advantage in order to be able to profit from them in times of adversity, so that when Fortune changes she will find him prepared to resist her.

For there is such a distance between how one lives and how one ought to live, that anyone who abandons what is done for what ought to be done achieves his downfall rather than his preservation.

A man who wishes to profess goodness at all times will come to ruin among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain himself to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge or not to use it according to necessity.

But since it is neither possible to have them nor to observe them all completely, because the human condition does not permit it, a prince must be prudent enough to know how to escape the infamy of those vices that would take the state away from him, and be on guard against those vices that will not take it from him, whenever possible.

Because, carefully taking everything into account, he will discover that something which appears to be a virtue,* if pursued, will result in his ruin; while some other thing which seems to be a vice, if pursued, will secure his safety and his well-being.

I say that it would be good to be considered generous. Nevertheless, generosity employed in such a way as to give you a reputation for it will injure you,

As a consequence of this generosity of his, having injured the many and rewarded the few, he will feel the effects of any discontent and will vacillate at the first sign of danger; recognizing this and wishing to change his ways, he immediately incurs the infamy of being a miser.

Therefore, a prince, being unable to use this virtue of generosity in a manner that will not harm himself if he is known for it, should, if he is wise, not concern himself about the reputation of being miserly.

With time he will come to be considered more generous, once it is evident that, as a result of his parsimony, his income is sufficient, he can defend himself from anyone who wages war against him, and he can...

In this way he appears as generous to all those from whom he takes nothing, who are countless, and as miserly to all those to...

In our times we have not seen great deeds accomplished except by those who were considered miserly; t...

a prince must consider it of little account if he incurs the reputation of being a miser, for this is one of those vices that enables him to rule.

A prince either spends his own money and that of his subjects, or that of others. In the first case he must be economical; in the second, he must not hold back any part of his generosity.

There is nothing that uses itself up faster than generosity; for as you employ it, you lose the means of employing it, and you become either poor or despised or else, to escape poverty, you become rapacious and hated.

And above all things, a prince must guard himself against being despised and hated. Generosity leads you both to one and to the other.

let me say that every prince must desire to be considered merciful and not cruel; nevertheless, he must take care not to use such mercy badly.

Therefore, a prince must not worry about the infamy of being considered cruel when it is a matter of keeping his subjects united and loyal. With a very few examples of cruelty, he will prove more compassionate than those who, out of excessive mercy, permit disorders to continue from which arise murders and plundering, for these usually injure the entire community, while the executions ordered by the prince injure specific individuals.

He should proceed in such a manner, tempered by prudence and humanity, that too much trust may not render him incautious, nor too much suspicion render him insufferable.

it is much safer to be feared than to be loved, when one of the two must be lacking.

For one can generally say this about men: they are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers, avoiders of danger, and greedy for gain. While you work for their benefit they are completely yours, offering you their blood, their property, their lives, and their sons, as I said above, when the need to do so is far away. But when it draws nearer to you, they turn away.

For friendships acquired by a price and not by greatness and nobility of spirit are purchased but are not owned, and at the proper time cannot be spent.

Men are less hesitant about injuring someone who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared, because love is held together by a chain of obligation that, since men are a wretched lot, is broken on every occasion for their own self-interest; but fear is sustained by a dread of punishment that will never abandon you.

A prince must nevertheless make himself feared in such a way that he will avoid hatred, even if he does not acquire love; since one can very easily be feared and yet not hated. This will always be the case when he abstains from th...

But above all else, he should abstain from seizing the property of others; for men forget the death of their father more quickly than the loss of their patrimony.

Moreover, reasons for taking their property are never lacking, and he who begins to live by stealing always finds a reason for taking what belongs to others;

But when the prince is with his armies and has a multitude of soldiers under his command, then it is absolutely necessary that he should not worry about being considered cruel, for without that reputation he w...