"A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests"
About this Quote
A cold sentence that still burns because it refuses to flatter the reader. Machiavelli isn’t advising rulers to be cartoon villains; he’s stripping politics down to its operating system: power survives by results, not by moral self-image. The provocation is deliberate. “Wise” is the bait word, smuggling cynicism into the language of prudence. Wisdom, here, isn’t virtue. It’s accuracy about how other people behave and how quickly a state can unravel when it confuses goodness with safety.
The subtext is that promises are not sacred objects; they’re instruments. If circumstances change, keeping faith can become a luxury, even a liability. Machiavelli’s real target isn’t “morality” so much as naive moralism: the belief that public life can be run on private ethics without consequence. He’s also signaling a brutal asymmetry: rivals will break faith when it suits them, so a ruler who clings to vows as absolutes risks being outplayed by less scrupulous actors. The implied audience isn’t the saint; it’s the prince who wants to keep the city intact.
Context matters. Writing in a fractured, backstabbing Italy of shifting alliances, mercenary armies, and fickle city-states, Machiavelli watched leaders lose everything by trusting that norms would restrain enemies. His counsel is less “be evil” than “don’t be predictable.” The line works because it’s heresy posed as realism, forcing the reader to confront an uncomfortable possibility: the ethics we admire in individuals can become a vulnerability in governance, unless they’re backed by power and strategy.
The subtext is that promises are not sacred objects; they’re instruments. If circumstances change, keeping faith can become a luxury, even a liability. Machiavelli’s real target isn’t “morality” so much as naive moralism: the belief that public life can be run on private ethics without consequence. He’s also signaling a brutal asymmetry: rivals will break faith when it suits them, so a ruler who clings to vows as absolutes risks being outplayed by less scrupulous actors. The implied audience isn’t the saint; it’s the prince who wants to keep the city intact.
Context matters. Writing in a fractured, backstabbing Italy of shifting alliances, mercenary armies, and fickle city-states, Machiavelli watched leaders lose everything by trusting that norms would restrain enemies. His counsel is less “be evil” than “don’t be predictable.” The line works because it’s heresy posed as realism, forcing the reader to confront an uncomfortable possibility: the ethics we admire in individuals can become a vulnerability in governance, unless they’re backed by power and strategy.
Quote Details
| Topic | Decision-Making |
|---|---|
| Source | The Prince (Il Principe), Niccolò Machiavelli, c.1513 (pub.1532). See Chapter XVIII, “Concerning the Way in Which Princes Should Keep Faith” — often translated/paraphrased as “A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.” |
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