CHAPTER XV.

CONCERNING THINGS FOR WHICH MEN, AND ESPECIALLY PRINCES, ARE PRAISED OR

BLAMED

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.