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.

the first is to ruin them, the next is to reside there in per­son, the third is to per­mit them to live un­der their own laws, draw­ing a trib­ute, and es­tab­lish­ing within it an ol­ig­archy which will keep it friendly to you

mer­cen­ar­ies

was the reason why the tem­poral powers of the pope were little es­teemed in Italy.

And the short life of a pope is also a cause of weak­ness; for in the ten years, which is the av­er­age life of a pope, he can with dif­fi­culty lower one of the fac­tions; and if,

Besides this, one can­not by fair deal­ing, and without in­jury to oth­ers, sat­isfy the nobles, but you can sat­isfy the people, for their ob­ject is more right­eous than that of the nobles, the lat­ter wish­ing to op­press, while the former only de­sire not to be op­pressed.

a kind that one does not stand in fear o