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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: given, showing how many treaties and engagements have been made void
and of no effect through the faithlessness of princes; and he who has
known best how to employ the fox has succeeded best.
[*] "Contesting," i.e. "striving for mastery." Mr Burd points out that
this passage is imitated directly from Cicero's "De Officiis":
"Nam cum sint duo genera decertandi, unum per disceptationem,
alterum per vim; cumque illud proprium sit hominis, hoc beluarum;
confugiendum est ad posterius, si uti non licet superiore."
But it is necessary to know well how to disguise this characteristic,
and to be a great pretender and dissembler; and men are so simple, and
so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will
The Prince |
