The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

Are you tired of losing your conquered territories as soon as you acquire them? Are you worried that the nobility, your citizens, or neighboring states are plotting against you? Do you want to start your own kingdom, but are afraid people will realize you’re a fraud without any legitimate claim to power? If so, then fear not! Exiled former Florentine Republic official Niccolo Machiavelli has the instructional guide you need! Machiavelli’s name is synonymous in modern times with cynical, manipulative, and self-serving social behavior, so you know his advice is going to be nice and blunt.

Here are some of Machiavelli’s principles for current and aspiring rulers:

• When taking power, you must promptly make sure restoring the old status quo becomes impossible. The main way to do this is by purging people associated with the old order.
• Your enemies need to be utterly ruined at the earliest opportunity. If you merely inflict petty harms against them, you will only invite retaliation and you won’t have accomplished anything.
• Don’t appease your enemies in the name of conflict avoidance. If conflict is inevitable, your position is likely to only weaken with time.
• Cruelty should be used swiftly and decisively, whereas generosity should be dispensed slowly for maximum psychological impact.
• Don’t rely on external for-hire mercenaries. When money is the only motivator, people will take every lazy professional shortcut they can and will also abandon you at the earliest sign of trouble.
• Gratitude is quickly forgotten, while fear is not. It is safer in the long term to aim to be feared rather than loved.
• Keep your hands off of other people’s property and other people’s women. This is how personal hatreds usually start.
• Make firm opinions on issues and take firm sides in other people’s conflicts, even if you have no honest interest in them. If you are neutral then no one will trust you. If you are indecisive then no one will respect you.
• The world is divided into three types of minds: those who can grasp things without help, those who can see what others have grasped, and those who grasp nothing and see nothing. You can still succeed in politics even if you are the second type, but you will need to surround yourself with people of the first type and make sure their interests align with yours.