Quotation
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“Hence it is that all armed prophets have conquered, and the unarmed ones have been destroyed.”
Niccolò Machiavelli · Political realism · Renaissance · 1513, published 1532
What does it mean?
The usual reading is about new rulers who bring a new order: people are easy to persuade and hard to keep persuaded, so the innovator who has only words is ruined when belief fades, and the one who can use force is not. A competing reading hears a sneer at religion as such. Moses is on his list of armed founders, with Cyrus, Theseus, and Romulus. The sentence is in chapter 6, on new principalities won by one's own arms and ability. Savonarola is the recent unarmed case, ruined when the multitude stopped believing and he had no way to make them believe. Arms here are a way of holding a new order, not a general love of war. The chapter still says fortune and ability both matter.
Did Niccolò Machiavelli really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Marriott's English of a sentence in chapter 6. The Italian contrast is prophets with arms and prophets without. Savonarola is his modern example of the second. The line is not 'the ends justify the means', which is not in the book.
Where it comes from
The Prince, chapter 6, in W. K. Marriott's translation
Approximate date: 1513, published 1532.
How to use it
A charity in Manchester that announces a new safeguarding regime, wins a round of applause, and has no power to enforce it when the old practice returns, is the unarmed prophet in a smaller room. The sentence does not say the regime should be cruel. It says a change that lives only in the launch meeting will be destroyed by the next week of ordinary behaviour. He thinks you plan for the moment belief slips. Institutions that cannot hold a rule are his subject, not posters.
A mindset reading
Separate the ease of agreement from the means of keeping it. The habit is to ask what happens when people stop believing. Machiavelli is cold about that moment on purpose. Quoting him as if he had said the ends justify the means, a sentence not in the book, skips the actual claim, which is about the tools a new order has when persuasion fails.
Understand the philosophy
Chapter 6 compares founders who depend on their own arms and virtù with those who depend on others. The key pair is armed and unarmed prophets. Persuasion starts the change. Force is what he thinks keeps it when people revert. Savonarola is the warning from his own Florence. The line belongs with chapter 15, already here, on learning how not to be good according to necessity, and it is still a claim about founding, not a universal permission.
- power
- change
- society
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading is about new rulers who bring a new order: people are easy to persuade and hard to keep persuaded, so the innovator who has only words is ruined when belief fades, and the one who can use force is not. A competing reading hears a sneer at religion as such. Moses is on his list of armed founders, with Cyrus, Theseus, and Romulus. The sentence is in chapter 6, on new principalities won by one's own arms and ability. Savonarola is the recent unarmed case, ruined when the multitude stopped believing and he had no way to make them believe. Arms here are a way of holding a new order, not a general love of war. The chapter still says fortune and ability both matter.
Did Niccolò Machiavelli really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Marriott's English of a sentence in chapter 6. The Italian contrast is prophets with arms and prophets without. Savonarola is his modern example of the second. The line is not 'the ends justify the means', which is not in the book.
Which work is it in?
The Prince, chapter 6, in W. K. Marriott's translation Approximate date: 1513, published 1532.