A review by yanny_reads
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

4.0

I read this because it's a school requirement and we'll be having our test tomorrow. At first, I thought it's be as boring as what they'd said. But no, not really.

I like Machiavelli's idea of mankind, his idea of a prince, of a leader.

Which is better? To be liberal or miser? To be cruel or compassionate? To be feared than love or to be loved than feared? Being a "prince" you should think about all these.

But what should we really be thinking about is this:

"But so wide is the separation between the way men actually live and the way that they ought to live, that anyone who turns his attention from what is actually done to what ought to be done, studies his own ruin rather thank his preservation."

Just think about that. Is what we're doing really what we're supposed to do? We live the life we know because that's what is taught to us since we were young. We ought to believe that such things are true and not because that's what we grew up with leading us to our own destruction.

There's just one thing that I don't agree with Machiavelli. Yes, men in general might be ingrates, fickle, deceivers, evaders of danger or desirous of gain but despite all that, there's still good within. We just have to find it because...

Everyone sees what you seem to be, few understand what you really are.