Chapter 18 - Page 2

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
always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived. One recent
example I cannot pass over in silence. Alexander the Sixth did nothing
else but deceive men, nor ever thought of doing otherwise, and he
always found victims; for there never was a man who had greater power
in asserting, or who with greater oaths would affirm a thing, yet
would observe it less; nevertheless his deceits always succeeded
according to his wishes,[*] because he well understood this side of
mankind.

[*] "Nondimanco sempre gli succederono gli inganni (ad votum)." The
words "ad votum" are omitted in the Testina addition, 1550.

Alexander never did what he said,
Cesare never said what he did.

Italian Proverb.

Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good
qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to
have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and
always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them
is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright,
and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to
be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

And you have to understand this, that a prince, especially a new one,
cannot observe all those things for which men are esteemed, being
often forced, in order to maintain the state, to act contrary to
fidelity,[*] friendship, humanity, and religion. Therefore it is
necessary for him to have a mind ready to turn itself accordingly as
the winds and variations of fortune force it, yet, as I have said
above, not to diverge from the good if he can avoid doing so, but, if
compelled, then to know how to set about it.

[*] "Contrary to fidelity" or "faith," "contro alla fede," and "tutto
fede," "altogether faithful," in the next paragraph. It is
noteworthy that these two phrases, "contro alla fede" and "tutto
fede," were omitted in the Testina edition, which was published
with the sanction of the papal authorities. It may be that the
meaning attached to the word "fede" was "the faith," i.e. the
Catholic creed, and not as rendered here "fidelity" and
"faithful." Observe that the word "religione" was suffered to
stand in the text of the Testina, being used to signify
indifferently every shade of belief, as witness "the religion," a
phrase inevitably employed to designate the Huguenot heresy. South
in his Sermon IX, p. 69, ed. 1843, comments on this passage as
follows: "That great patron and Coryphaeus of this tribe, Nicolo
Machiavel, laid down this for a