NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI

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 ...

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...

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...

[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 becaus...

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.

T...

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...

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, ho...

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...