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 a 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.

