![]() “Of course people are going to resent that.” “I’m not interested in preserving the status quo I want to overthrow it,” he says. He also did not write that other popular internet meme, ‘ I’m not interested in preserving the status quo I want to overthrow it.’ That was actually said by US Republican Newt Gringrich, and is taken from a 1991 interview printed in the LA Times: While popular on the Internet, this unsourced quote is not one of his maxims. It might even derive from The Art of War by Sun-Tzu. That is a mis-quote, likely paraphrased from The Discourses, Book III: 40, or Book II: 13. Nor did Machiavelli write, ‘ Never to attempt to win by force what can be won by deception,’ in The Prince. William Shakespeare: Hamlet Act 3, scene 4 Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.” Instead of ‘the end justifies the means,’ a paraphrase for Machiavelli might better be taken from a line in Nick Lowe’s song: You gotta be cruel to be kind in the right measure, or this line from Hamlet’s speech: Machiavelli wrote that the effect of a ruler’s actions mattered more than the deeds themselves, as long as the end was good for the state. Here’s where ‘the end justifies the means’ comes in. Machiavelli constantly reminds readers that rulers need to make tough decisions to maintain order, and at times be cruel in the short term in order to achieve order or happiness and stability in the long term. ![]() Machiavelli believed strongly in law, as long as it served the greater good of the state. “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” He certainly was not a hedonist like Aleister Crowley who wrote, However memorable it is, he had a lot more to say about politics and the behaviour of rulers than that one line. Machiavelli did not write ‘the end justifies the means.’ It is a modern condensation – and somewhat of a simplification – of an idea expressed in The Prince. And from that stems several misconceptions about what he said and didn’t say. Many people recognize that he wrote The Prince (Il Principe), but few modern municipal politicians can lay claim to actually having read it (let alone The Discourses or his other works). One is the statement that, ‘the end justifies the means.’ The other is by the adjective ‘Machiavellian,’ meaning something evil, underhanded, treacherous, cunning or sneaky in politics. Machiavelli today is commonly known by two things.
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