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.

in or­der that they should be dis­posed to fol­low him so as to be de­livered out of bond­age.

Moses that he should find the people of Is­rael in Egypt en­slaved and op­pressed by the Egyp­tians,

A wise man ought al­ways to fol­low the paths beaten by great men, and to im­it­ate those who have been su­preme, so that if his abil­ity does not equal theirs, at least it will sa­vour of it.

so that the safest way is to des­troy them or to reside there.

stated have been ac­cus­tomed to live un­der their own laws and in free­dom, there are three courses for those who wish to hold them: 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.

who have to re­gard not only present troubles, but also fu­ture ones, for which they must pre­pare with every en­ergy, be­cause, when fore­seen, it is easy to rem­edy them; but if you wait un­til they ap­proach, the medi­cine is no longer in time be­cause the mal­ady has be­come in­cur­able; for it hap­pens in this, as the phys­i­cians say it hap­pens in hec­tic fever, that in the be­gin­ning of the mal­ady it is easy to cure but dif­fi­cult to de­tect, but in the course of time, not hav­ing been either de­tec­ted or treated in the be­gin­ning, it be­comes easy to de­tect but dif­fi­cult to cure.