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Machiavelli The Prince Quote Analysis

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In Machiavelli’s famous novel The Prince, several ideals concerning the proper actions of a prince are recorded. These actions are presented to the reader and then justified by Machiavelli’s personal and historical observations. Throughout several chapters, Machiavelli intensely describes the traits of a prince and explains in thorough detail which vices a prince should act on and which virtues he should exhibit.
Machiavelli presents several ideas concerning the behavior of a prince in his novel The Prince. To begin with, Machiavelli believes that a prince should learn attributes that are not typically considered good. In fact, in order to survive as a prince and hold onto a principality, one has to commit actions that are not virtuous. This …show more content…

There are two distinct means of fighting, which includes both laws and force. While a prince must be able to utilize laws, he must also be able to take on more beast-like qualities. However, he will not succeed if he only acts as a ferocious lion or a cunning fox; if a prince is to succeed in all manner of situations, he must utilize both aspects accordingly. In addition to this, Machiavelli concludes that a prince must only keep his word when it suits him; if it harms his position, it does a prince no good to keep an oath. This is one of the aspects of the cunning fox. Ultimately, though, Machiavelli concludes that while a prince may not have all of these qualities, he must seem to have them. He must seem as virtuous as possible to the people, but, as previously stated, due to the inherently evil nature of man, he must also be prepared to work against virtue. However, if a prince has previously had a reputation of goodness, his actions will always be justified by the people and future wrongdoings will be excused. In conclusion, while a prince must strive to be multifaceted in order to succeed, he must also at the very least appear to be multifaceted and have a virtuous

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