In 1523, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote the book, “The Prince” as a gift to Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici. The thesis of his book is “the ends justify the means”, meaning, it doesn’t matter how you get to the end, as long as you get there. In Machiavelli’s book, “the end” really means staying in power, so his book to Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici explains the steps he should take in order to maintain his power.

In his book, one of Machiavelli's main points in “politics have no relation to morals”. An example of this is his quote, “It is not essential for a Prince to have all good qualities, but it is most essential that he should seem to have them.” In translation: you can trick your people into thinking that you are a good leader, if you can fake that you are a good leader.

This quote is a good example that shows the characteristics of a leader, and of their people. A leader is sneaky, a liar, and sometimes heartless. It explains that leaders are heartless in the quote “men ought to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.” In other words, it is easiest to control your people if you treat them right, but if need be you need to completely destroy them, whether that is mentally or physically, because that is the only way you will keep control of them.

An example that a leader is a liar is the quote, “A prince never lacks a legitimate reason to break his promise.” What this means is that a leader will always have a reason to go back on his word, so there for he can lie to his people, because he will have a reason to do so no matter what. This quote also explains the characteristics of people. People are unaware, gullible, and sometimes stupid. This is shown when their leader lies to them. Under an intelligent leader's reign, people will always believe what he has to say, even if he lies to them multiple times and goes back on his word.

This specific quote makes me appreciate leaders more. It explains that as long as you can come up with a reason, you can always lie and always get away with it. It seems like a simple thing, but only a true genius can pull of constantly going back on his word, and keeping all his lies from destroying him, at the same time controlling thousands of people.

I agree with Machiavelli's points, but at the same time I disagree with them. I disagree with them because it is against my personal morals to go against what is politically correct, just to maintain power. However, I agree with him because, like with the cannibal story from Harvard, sometime you have to do whatever it takes to maintain power, or stay alive.