The medici family as well as the people of Florence took this differently than how it was portrayed by Machiavelli. Because of this it is necessary for a prince, wanting to maintain himself, to learn how to be able to be not good and to use this and not use it according to necessity." According to Machiavelli, a ruler must do what is necessary in order to maintain power and prevent being overthrown. A prince must also be on guard by any chance some foreigner equal to him in power should enter them. 1 The above advice is not the common advice given to mayors, senators, presidents, and others in public office. A prince must be careful not to make himself hated, even though he is feared; to do this, he must keep his hands off his subjects' property and their women.

A prince who wishes to maintain his power ought therefore to learn that he should not be always good, and must use that knowledge as circumstances and the exigencies of … Machiavellian prince will do anything to maintain power, but also thinks about how to maintain favor from inside the government and from the people while doing so. Machiavelli explicitly expresses methods of how to be an efficient ruler throughout The Prince. People will sooner forget the death of a father than the loss of an inheritance. In Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, One of his goals was to win the favor of Lorenzo de’ Medici, then-governor of Florence and the person to whom the book is dedicated; Machiavelli hoped to have a position within the Florentine government. According to Machiavelli, a ruler must do what is necessary in order to maintain power and prevent being overthrown. Therefore, a prudent prince must hold to a third mode, choosing wise men in his state; and only to these should he give freedom to speak the truth to him, and of those things only that he asks about and nothing else. The most notable characteristics of a Machiavellian leader include avoiding flatterers, to be feared rather than loved, choice of secretaries, keeping people faithful, and how to rule after power is … According to Machiavelli, the ideal prince should be ruthless and willing to eschew conventional morality to maintain his power. My focus in this paper will be how the idea of being feared is … The biggest strategy Machiavelli discusses is gaining the trust of the people in the state. Machiavelli also discusses the certain things you must do once you gain power in order to maintain it such as what to do with the actual state itself and what to do with the government of that state as well.

Machiavelli believes that a prince should appear to have five qualities, being merciful, faithful, humane, sincere, and religious, but when it is needed to be able to change to the opposite of these qualities. According to Machiavelli a ruler should have three ends namely to gain power,to retain power and to extend power.In order to achieve these ends,a ruler can do everything.Machiavelli wisely borrows an image from medieval animal fables and says that the ruler must be able to imitate both the lion and the fox. Machiavelli believes power is legitimized by a prince's ability to defend his kingdom from foreign threats and maintain domestic order. According to Machiavelli, the ideal prince should be ruthless and willing to eschew conventional morality to maintain his power. Machiavelli explicitly expresses methods of how to be an efficient ruler throughout The Prince. “The prince who would maintain his credit in his princedom must do likewise; since nothing helps so much to make a prince esteemed as to give signal proofs of his worth, whether by words or by deeds which tend to promote the public good, and show him to be so magnanimous, generous, and just, that he may well pass into a proverb among his subjects.” The Discourses: III, 34. Cruelty was also some times necessary. Machiavelli maintained that the “dread of punishment" was important for a smart prince to institute. However, when a prince commands an army, he must be cruel in order to control his troops. Niccolo Machiavelli was an Italian politician, historian, philosopher and writer who worked in Florence during the Renaissance.