Note that you have to be either soft or harsh, because men take offense easily at small insults, but they can't react against harsh measures. When you offend someone, be sure they are incapable of revenge.

In the case of occupied states that have been used to living with their own laws in liberty, there are 3 modes of holding them: first, to ruin them; second, go live personally in them; third, let them live according to their laws […] and creating a faithful oligarchy that will keep the state friendly. Such an oligarchy knows that the Prince created the state and they know they are dependent on his friendship and power and do everything they can to maintain it. It is easier to preserve a city by allowing it to live in liberty according to the customs of its citizens than by any other method.

It is quite natural and ordinary for a Prince to want to expand his rule, and when they do, if they can, they are praised and not blamed.But when they are unsuccessful, but still want to do it, here lies the error and the fault.

One can draw a general rule from this, which rarely fails—whoever helps someone else to power gets ruined. The reason is that it takes industry or force to make someone powerful, and both of these are suspect in the mind of the one who becomes powerful.

It is a fact of life that, as soon as a powerful foreigner enters a province, all those who are weaker flock to his side motivated by envy of the chief put over them. So, in regard to lesser lords, a new Prince has no trouble lining them up […] He just has to be careful they don't take too much power and authority.

I do not mean to be presumptuous or to play a low or vile character desiring to discuss the role and governance of a Prince, but, as those who, in picturing the country, place themselves from low on the plain to view the mountains and the heights, and similarly, those who want to view the lowlands do so from high on the mountain, so it is that to know the nature of a people, one needs to be a Prince, and to know the nature of a Prince, one needs to be of the people.

A natural Prince with a long hereditary line is less likely to give offense; he is more likely to be appreciated; and if he is not given to vices that make him hated, it is pretty usual for him to be held in his subjects' affections.Tradition and custom of rule dim the memory and the causes of the original rise to power.

What the doctors say about behavior is true here too, that in the beginning of something bad it is easy to cure although difficult to know it, but with time, not having recognized or treated it, it becomes easy to know but hard to cure. It is the same with affairs of state: spotting something wrong quickly (which takes prudence), one cures it quickly. But if, not recognizing what is going on, things are left to fester so everybody sees them, then there is no remedy.

[But] there is no sure method of pressing cities except by ruining them. Whoever takes a city used to living in liberty according to its own customs and does not ruin it, risks being ruined by it. This is because the city can always rebel in the name of liberty and its ancient customs, none of which are ever forgotten with time no matter how much largesse.No matter what one does, if you don't disband the citizenry and immediately eradicate the customs and traditions, they come back to haunt you.

When the city is used to living under a Prince but the line is extinguished, [the citizens] are used to obeying on the one hand, and on the other hand, their old Prince is gone. They can neither agree among themselves nor can they live in freedom. This makes them likely to take arms; a new Prince can more easily take over and secure his reign.In Republics, there is more life, more hate, more desire for revenge. You can’t leave them alone and you can’t allow the memory of the old liberty. The safest way to deal with them is ruin them and then live there.

One must remember that Principalities are governed in two different ways— either by a Prince whom all serve as ministers who thanks to a concession help to govern the realm, or by a Prince and his Barons who, not by appointment, but by heredity, hold that rank. Such Barons have their own states and underlings who recognize and hold them in affection. Those states that are governed by a Prince and his servants are centralized with more authority, because nobody else in the province is viewed as more power or higher.

Those who have read Machiavelli in depth have positive opinions; those who have not read his works have negative opinions. When he suggests guiding principles for a Prince concerning his land and people, the principles are not anchored in Machiavelli, the man, but in Machiavelli, the scientist. Because those principles are revealed through his science, we should judge him by the science he’s discovered and not by the truths discovered through that science, because too often those truths are not to our liking. 

Machiavelli needs to be looked at as he really was. Hence: Can Machiavelli, who makes the following observations, be Machiavellian as we understand the disparaging term? 1. So it is that to know the nature of a people, one need be a Prince; to know the nature of a Prince, one need to be of the people. 2. If a Prince is not given to vices that make him hated, it is unsusal for his subjects to show their affection for him. 3. Opportunity made Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and others; their virtue domi-nated the opportunity, making their homelands noble and happy. Armed prophets win; the disarmed lose. 4. Without faith and religion, man achieves power but not glory. 5. Prominent citizens want to command and oppress; the populace only wants to be free of oppression. 6. A Prince needs a friendly populace; otherwise in diversity there is no hope. 7. A Prince, who rules as a man of valor, avoids disasters, 8. Nations based on mercenary forces will never be solid or secure. 9. Mercenaries are dangerous because of their cowardice 10. There are two ways to fight: one with laws, the other with force. The first is rightly man's way; the second, the way of beasts.

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The most famous book on politics ever written, The Prince remains as lively and shocking today as when it was written almost five hundred years ago. Initially denounced as a collection of sinister maxims and a recommendation of tyranny, it has more recently been defended as the first scientific treatment of politics as it is practiced rather than as it ought to be practiced. Harvey C. Mansfield's brilliant translation of this classic work, along with the new materials added for this edition, make it the definitive version of The Prince, indispensable to scholars, students, and those interested in the dark art of politics. This revised edition of Mansfield's acclaimed translation features an updated bibliography, a substantial glossary, an analytic introduction, a chronology of Machiavelli's life, and a map of Italy in Machiavelli's time. "Of the other available [translations], that of Harvey C. Mansfield makes the necessary compromises between exactness and readability, as well as providing an excellent introduction and notes."—Clifford Orwin, The Wall Street Journal "Mansfield's work . . . is worth acquiring as the best combination of accuracy and readability."—Choice "There is good reason to assert that Machiavelli has met his match in Mansfield. . . . [He] is ready to read Machiavelli as he demands to be read—plainly and boldly, but also cautiously."—John Gueguen, The Sixteenth Century Journal

NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI