then grown necessary they must be as ill as those have made them: and in the end they will grow more hateful to themselves than to their subjects. Whereas, on the contrary, the merciful prince is safe in love, not in fear. He needs no emissaries, spies, intelligencers, to entrap true subjects. He fears no libels, no treasons. His people speak what they think, and talk openly what they do in secret. They have nothing in their breasts that they need a cipher for. He is guarded with his own benefits.
There is nothing with some princes sacred above their majesty; or profane, but what violates their sceptres. But a prince with such a council [qu. counsel?] is like the god Terminus of stone, his own landmark; or (as it is in the fable) a crowned lion. . . . No men hate an evil prince more than they that helped to make him such. And none more boastingly weep his ruin than they that procured and practised it. The same path leads to ruin which did to rule, when men profess a license in government. A good king is a public servant.
A prince without letters is a pilot without eyes. All his government is groping. In sovereignty it is a most happy thing not to be compelled; but so it is the most miserable not to be counselled. And how can he be counselled that cannot see to read the best counsellors, which are books; for they neither flatter us nor hide from us? He may hear, you will say; but how shall he always be sure to hear truth? or be counselled the best things, not the sweetest? They say princes learn no art truly but the art of horsemanship, The reason is, the brave