“A prince, being compelled knowingly to adopt the beast, ought to choose the fox and the lion; because the lion cannot defend himself against snares, and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves. Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves.”
This was Niccolò Machiavelli’s advice to young rulers in the notorious handbook that he wrote for them, The Prince, in the early 16th century. The ruler needs to be a strong lion to scare off the wolves but also a cunning fox to recognise the traps that the lion might fall into. We are very far here from the simplistic idea that “the ends justify the means”, a phrase that does not appear in the book – a Machiavellianism that was caricatured later to blacken his name.
Content from our partners
