Machiavelli's 'The Qualities Of The Prince'

The Renaissance represented a new era in which values such as secularism and power became prevalent in society. Machiavelli expresses the need for politics and religion to be separated throughout his book "The Prince". Previously rulers had been restricted by Christian principals, but Machiavelli held the idea that rulers were warranted in any action so as long as it benefited the general public. Machiavelli believed that politics existed outside the realm of religion and morals. Subsequently, he approved of using any means necessary to gain and keep power, including lying, stealing, and murder. During this time Italy's city-states were in political chaos and condottieri roamed the streets. Machiavelli thought it was the ruler's duty to maintain discipline and peace in society at any cost. Despite his intentions to help Italy, Machiavelli's ideas were often seen as immoral and dishonest. The idea of a purely political action where morals were set aside is later referred to as the " Reasons of the state". In addition, Machiavelli felt a ruler must be sly

“Since, then, a prince must know how to use well the nature of the beast, he should choose from among the beasts the fox and the lion; for the lion cannot defend itself from traps, while the fox cannot protect itself from the wolves. It is therefore necessary to be a fox, in order to recognize the traps, and a lion, in order to frighten the wolves’ (Machiavelli 60).” When must the Prince be the lion and when must he be the fox? In The Prince written by Machiavelli, Machiavelli writes to the Prince to tell him the best way to rule over a principality, and the consequences of the decisions he makes in his ruling. Machiavelli applies figurative language, such as metaphors to explain the way a situation will often play out. He represents different roles of leadership as animals. The different animals, lion, wolf, fox, have varying characteristics. Machiavelli uses the metaphors of a lion and a fox in order to illustrate the need for a prince to be both strong and brave and sly and cunning. The effect of these metaphors is to demonstrate that a prince must demonstrate more than just one characteristic in order to lead with power and authority.

To be a leader there are multiple characteristics that makes one leader better than another. In 1469, an aristocrat by the name of Niccolo Machiavelli was born. Machiavelli was born in an unfortunate time when Florence was unstable and was wrongly convicted which led him to be imprisoned. He later wrote a book by the name of The Qualities of the Prince which listed his thoughts and ideas on what characteristics a prince should have to be a successful leader. Today, we have leaders that guide us through tough decisions and keep order in the state, widely known as the politicians. Politicians are people who are involved in politics as a job and usually are in an elected office. We also have in that group a sub group known as the Governor. The

After reading Machiavelli’s main points in “Traits of the Prince”, I would remix his traits and give these following advices to an up-and-coming presidential candidate:

According to each thinker, peace has important significance in each text. Machiavelli believed that, “a ruler must think only of military matters, and in time of peace he should be even more occupied with them than in times of war” (The Prince, 46). Furthermore, “he will never relax during peacetime, but will always be working to take advantage of the opportunities peace presents, so he will be fully prepared when adversity comes. When his luck changes, he must be ready to fight back” (The Prince, 47). Therefore, according to Machiavelli during periods of peace, rulers must always take precautions to prepare for war, for their self-preservation. Furthermore, in The Discourses Machiavelli states the city of Rome, “was a success because of the lengthy period of peace the site they had chosen ensured for them” (85). Peace, is a means to the end, of the true purpose of government, which is to ensure the stability of the state as well as the preservation of the established ruler’s control. Machiavelli states:

Machiavelli’s The Prince talks about many issues of modern political philosophy, it was written to help rulers stay in power. His common themes are ruling through fear, being as powerful as a lion and as intelligent as a fox, and to maintain the state at all costs. One of the common discussions about his writings is what he means by “one must learn how to not be good.” For what reason should a ruler learn to not be good? He claims that being good and continuing to be good could only make a ruler more weak. He continues to list good and bad qualities of a ruler and claiming that every ruler will have at least one of the bad qualities but the way he conquers his unpraised attribute is most important. A ruler should hide his flaws so that he only

In Niccolò Machiavelli, The Qualities of the prince a passage in A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers by Lee A. Jacobus describes the essentials of being a prince. Machiavelli discusses the ability to being a great leader is to have knowledge of war, avoid being hated, being feared is better than to be loved, to be cunning, and to keep up appearances. By having these qualities Machiavelli believed having such characteristics would keep what one is leading with efficiency and forward thinking. This thinking was in a setting with war-torn countries, battling for land and resources during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Another author in Lee’s book for college writers, a Chinese philosopher and writer during the sixth century B.C.E., emphasizes his view points on how to lead and how civilization would react to such leadership. in Lao-Tzu’s passage called Thoughts from the Tao-te Ching, describes that imposing fear and all type of greed would lead to people doing the wrong thing such as stealing. Lao-Tzu writes one should not enforce such idealistic’s but to let things “take their course” (59), opposite of machiavelli’s ideas of enforcing justice. Many of what both Machiavelli and Lao-Tau speak of is about human nature and the way common people would behave in different situations.

Humanism is a literary and linguistic movement cultivated during the Renaissance that was founded on revising classical Latin and Greek texts, styles, and values. Humanists encouraged looking to the past to discover what is good and how people should act including leaders. They wanted to get away from the changes that were made since the time of the ancient world and believed that those in the ancient world could be looked to as models of what to do and what not to do. Many humanist wrote about how they believe a prince should act and what he should do to be successful in his rule. Most humanists believed that princes should be virtuous in order to be successful rulers as many ancient leaders were.

The great philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli, having such beliefs, puts to rest man’s downfall and presents that way to preservation in his book The Prince, which produces an effective guide for political action based off of his own philosophical beliefs and history’s past. The Prince rest on the principle that, above all, the foundation for a ruler’s success is within verita effettuale—or, the effectiveness of a prince’s rule. Machiavelli urges rulers to focus on acting in ways that will result in the best political dominance rather than to be concerned with what others think of his actions. Furthermore, he mandates that for a prince to uphold his objective as the maintainer of the state, he must not be bound to a set code of morality. With that, Machiavelli takes out what was previously said on human morals and teaches that rulers do not, in fact, need to possess personal moral character in order to be effective political leaders. Indeed, a prince must learn to pay attention to moral qualities in such a manner as to be able to use them to gain the necessary power to control the state. He claims, a prince “should not deviate from what is good, if that is possible, but he should know how to do evil, if that is necessary” (Machiavelli). With this in mind, Machiavelli addresses how a prince should best use love, hate, fear, and cruelty to garner the most effective political rule possible.

Today, society goes to great lengths to project the illusion that genuine leadership signifies only a steadfast commitment to upholding the moral and ethical high ground. Culturally, it’s expected that great leaders must be individuals personifying solely the grandest principles of that society, while excluding and condemning the less admired ones. While this conviction is prevalent throughout our society, this belief is most perpetuated each year in the upper echelons our government during presidential and congressional elections, when candidates are asked inane questions about family values rather than political experience and ambitions. On this basis, our society consequently tends to overlook what true leadership is by choosing our leaders only on the basis of moral merit rather than real political accomplishment. With regard to that, in his work, The Prince, Machiavelli offers a contrasting and humanizing view of leadership when he suggests that successful leaders must be half animal, with equal parts fox and lion. Machiavelli proposes this concept to insinuate that a proper ruler must exist as a courageous and charismatic individual on the surface, but cunning and self-preserving one beneath it. He illustrates this argument through his depiction of leaders possessing an animalistic alter ego, his understanding of a ruler’s behavior, his description of the various forms in which one can acquire power, and his preference over being thought of as

This is a biography of Machiavelli’s life written by Harvey Mansfield and is part of Britannica Biographies, and is available through the History Reference Center. This biography goes through the life of Machiavelli in detail, covering his political career and his most important writings, one of them being The Prince.The

Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince can be seen as one of the first modern works in political philosophy. It is meant to be read as a guide on how to be a good ruler, and could be interpreted as manifesto dedicated to his patron, Lorenzo De’ Medici (de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic). Machiavelli however, is also attempting through the Treatise to emphasize that the effective truth is taken to be more important than any abstract ideal. Thus, it could be understood that Machiavelli has had enough of these imagined Republics and of these political writers describing how one ought to live. The Prince, therefore, could be viewed as a satirical critique of Plato and Aristotle and their views of an ideal Republic centered around the good of

Machiavelli described that as Princes who must keep his faith in the front of their people by showing their best side for those people, such as the embodiment of mercy, good faith, integrity, humanity, and religion. Yet, in fact, Princes in order to get their authority did some of violation of faith thing to keep their image of the surface.

In society today, people tend to want to achieve perfection as much as possible. However, they fail to realize that perfection is just this idealistic quality that no one can really obtain. The idea of “perfection” is usually given to those of higher power, like a prince. In Niccolo Machiavelli’s short story “The Moral of the Prince”, Machiavelli presents the idea that perfection is idealistic instead of realistic. Machiavelli explains how a prince is seen as this perfect individual with nothing but great qualities. However, he states that realistically, a prince cannot always be good because when always being good, you will be taken advantage of by the people. He states, “Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin

Machiavelli’s The Prince can be utilized as a guidebook to answer: “How best can a ruler maintain control of his state?” Therefore, if any employer reads it as a how-to-book rather than just a work of political theory, they can be seen as the ruler while the state would be the rest of the employees. If this is followed like an agenda, the sole purpose of government is not the good of the people but the stability of the state and the perpetuation of the established ruler’s control. It would define the city as an entity existing to serve its ruler rather than its populace. Obtaining the support of the people is not a goal in itself, but rather a means for ensuring that the city remains fortified.