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A short, blunt manual on how rulers actually keep power. Machiavelli sets aside what princes ought to do and asks what has worked: own arms, managed reputation, and the discipline to act against conventional virtue when the situation demands it.
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Chapter I · Question
What two kinds of state does Machiavelli distinguish at the start?
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Chapter I · Answer
Republics and principalities. He sets republics aside and concentrates on principalities, because that is the kind of state a single ruler can acquire and hold.
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Republics and principalities. He sets republics aside and concentrates on principalities, because that is the kind of state a single ruler can acquire and hold.
Chapter I
They are hereditary or new; new ones are either entirely new or annexed to an existing state. They are also either used to a prince or used to freedom, and are acquired by one's own arms, by someone else's, by fortune, or by ability.
Chapter I
A hereditary prince only has to avoid breaking his ancestors' customs and act prudently when circumstances change. The memories that drive change have faded, so unless an extraordinary force removes him, he keeps the state; and if he loses it, the usurper's own troubles tend to restore it.
Chapter II
Men rebel hoping to improve their lot, then find the new ruler worse. So the prince has enemies among those he injured, and cannot satisfy the friends who put him in power. Even with a strong army, anyone entering a province still needs the goodwill of the people who live there.
Chapter III
Extinguish the family of the former ruler and leave the laws and taxes alone. The two peoples will then settle together quickly, as Brittany, Burgundy, Gascony, and Normandy did under France. Similar customs do most of the work of legitimacy.
Chapter III
Go and live there, so disorders are seen as they start instead of when they are large. Also plant colonies in a few key places, which cost little and bind the territory, rather than garrisoning it with troops that antagonise everyone.
Chapter III
The Turk rules through appointed servants with no independent power, so there is no noble to bribe and no faction to split; once the ruling family is gone, nothing remains to revolt. France is full of hereditary barons with their own subjects, so one discontented lord can open the door, but the remaining lords keep raising new revolts.
Chapter IV
Ruin it, go and live in it, or let it keep its laws while taking tribute and installing a friendly oligarchy. He concludes that the only safe course is to destroy it, because the name of liberty never fades and becomes a rallying cry in every rebellion.
Chapter V
Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, and Theseus became princes through ability, but each needed a situation to work on: an oppressed people, a discontented country, a divided city. Fortune supplied the material; ability recognised and shaped it. Without the opportunity their talents would have gone unused.
Chapter VI
The innovator has enemies among everyone who prospered under the old system, and only lukewarm defenders among those who might benefit. Fear of the opponents and disbelief in anything new keep the beneficiaries half-hearted, so the reformer is endangered along with them.
Chapter VI
They rise easily and have no army loyal to them and no experience of command. Unless such a man has enough ability to lay foundations immediately, the first storm destroys him. Foundations normally laid before power have to be laid afterwards, which is much harder.
Chapter VII
Agathocles rose from a potter's son to king of Syracuse by murdering the senate and the richest citizens, then held the city through repeated attacks. Machiavelli grants that such cruelty can win and keep power, but denies it glory: it is a way to rule, not a model worth admiring.
Chapter VIII
A prince raised by the nobles has many rivals who consider themselves his equals and cannot be managed easily. One raised by the people stands nearly alone, with few around him unwilling to obey. The people's aim is also more honest — not to be oppressed — and they are easier to satisfy.
Chapter IX
Ask whether he can field an army against any attacker, or must shelter behind walls. If the latter, he should provision and fortify the town and not try to defend the open country. A well-fortified town whose prince is not hated is attacked only with great caution.
Chapter X
They are acquired by ability or fortune but can be held without either, because they rest on ancient religious institutions. Their princes have states and do not defend them, subjects and do not rule them; yet the states are not taken away. Machiavelli declines to analyse them further, treating them as sustained by powers beyond human calculation.
Chapter XI
They are disunited, ambitious, undisciplined, and unfaithful: brave before friends, cowardly before enemies. They fight for a small wage that is not enough to make them die for you. In peace they rob you; in war the enemy does. Italy's ruin, he says, came from relying on them.
Chapter XII
They belong to someone else. If they lose, you are undone; if they win, you become their prisoner. Borrowed strength always leaves the borrower weaker in the end, which is why Machiavelli insists on one's own arms.
Chapter XIII
War, its rules, and its discipline. Neglecting it is the first cause of losing a state; mastering it is what acquires one. In peacetime he should train harder than in war, keeping his men drilled and studying terrain, maps, and past campaigns.
Chapter XIV
Because the gap between how people live and how they ought to live is so wide that a prince who acts only on virtue will be destroyed among so many who are not good. He must therefore learn to do wrong when necessary, and use it or not according to the situation.
Chapter XV
To be seen as generous he must spend lavishly, then tax his people heavily, which makes him hated. When he tries to pull back he is called miserly. Better to accept the name of meanness: it lets him defend the state and undertake projects without burdening his subjects.
Chapter XVI
Both would be ideal, but if he must choose, feared is safer, because men love at their own will and fear at the prince's. He must still avoid hatred: never take his subjects' property or women, and never appear to be acting out of private greed.
Chapter XVII
Cesare Borgia was called cruel, yet his cruelty unified the Romagna and restored peace. Florence, to avoid the name of cruelty, let Pistoia be destroyed. Cruelty used to keep subjects united harms individuals; misplaced mercy lets disorder grow and harms the whole.
Chapter XVII
There are two ways to fight: by law, which suits men, and by force, which suits beasts. Law is often insufficient, so he must know both. The lion cannot escape snares and the fox cannot frighten wolves; he needs the fox to see traps and the lion to terrify them.
Chapter XVIII
Everyone praises a prince who keeps his word, but experience shows that princes who did great things held good faith of little account and overcame those who relied on theirs. A prince who keeps faith while others break it is destroyed. He should appear faithful, and break his word only when it serves him.
Chapter XVIII
Hatred comes chiefly from seizing subjects' property or women; leave both alone and most men are content. Contempt comes from seeming fickle, frivolous, effeminate, or irresolute. He should show greatness, courage, and firmness, and make his judgments irrevocable.
Chapter XIX
Only sometimes. They help against a sudden revolt or an outside attack, but are useless against a people who hate you, because walls do not stop hatred from opening the gates. The best fortress is not being hated by your people; a prince who relies on walls and neglects goodwill is lost.
Chapter XX
By great enterprises and striking examples. Ferdinand of Aragon attacked Granada, drove out the Moors under religious pretext, and kept launching new campaigns, so his people were always occupied with his projects and never had time to conspire against him.
Chapter XXI
The first opinion people form of a prince comes from his ministers. There are three classes of intellect: those who understand by themselves, those who understand when shown, and those who can do neither. A prince of the second class can still rule well if he recognises good advice. A minister who seeks his own profit will never serve well.
Chapter XXII
Inviting everyone to speak freely destroys respect, so he should choose a few wise men, let only them tell him the truth, question them on everything, then decide alone and hold to the decision. A prince who does otherwise is either ruined by flatterers or made contemptible by constant changes of mind.
Chapter XXIII
They shared two faults: they neglected arms, and they either made the people hostile or failed to secure the nobles. A prince with a strong army and a contented people is very hard to overthrow; without those two foundations, any crisis can finish him.
Chapter XXIV
About half, by Machiavelli's estimate; the rest is left to our direction. Fortune is like a flooding river that sweeps everything away, but in calm weather men can build dikes and canals so the next flood is less destructive. Prepared, adaptable princes withstand her better.
Chapter XXV
He calls for a new prince to unite and liberate Italy, arguing that the country's suffering has created the opportunity and that a leader of ability could seize it. The chapter is a political appeal to his own time, not a general rule of statecraft.
Chapter XXVI
Text used: Project Gutenberg eBook #1232 (Public domain in the United States). The 1908 W. K. Marriott translation is in the public domain. The full text was read chapter by chapter; cards are original paraphrases, not copied passages.
Version: 1532 (this translation 1908), translated by W. K. Marriott. Retrieved 2026-10-18. Cards reviewed 2026-10-18.
These cards paraphrase the text for study. They are not a substitute for reading the book, and they do not reproduce long passages.
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