“Fortune is the arbiter of half our actions, but she still leaves the other half, or close to it, for us to govern.”

What does it mean?

Not everything is luck, and not everything is will: fortune governs about half of human action, and the remaining half, or close to it, is left for virtu to govern. The usual reading stresses the river that follows, a flood less harmful where dykes were built in fair weather. A rival reading hears a confession that politics is mostly chance, and uses the fraction to excuse every failure of preparation. Chapter 25 limits virtu so that politics stays a response to circumstances rather than a science that guarantees results.

Did Niccolò Machiavelli really say this?

The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Close to the standard sense of the opening of The Prince, chapter 25. He compares fortune to a river that can be dyked in quiet times. Exact English varies by translator. The claim is his. This wording is a translation.

Where it comes from

The Prince, chapter 25

Approximate date: 1513, published 1532.

How to use it

A small cafe in Brighton spends a quiet February on the supplier contracts and on sandbags for the basement, not only on the busy Saturday. He thinks that preparation is the half one governs, and the river can still arrive. Preparation is not a promise that the street will stay dry, and fatalism is not a reason to leave the bags in the cupboard until the water is already in the kitchen.

A mindset reading

Fatalism and fantasies of total control are both refused, so the interesting work sits in the half he leaves to governance. Calling every outcome fortune, or every outcome merit, collapses a proportion he bothers to state. The proportion is rough on purpose: half, or close to it, not a constant one could measure with a ruler.

Understand the philosophy

Virtu in Machiavelli is not moral virtue but effectiveness, nerve, and the ability to change with the times. The key term fortune is the other partner, likened to a violent river that can be channelled and not abolished. Chapter 25 is where he limits virtu, against the idea that a capable prince can script events. Exact English varies by translator, and this wording is close to the opening of that chapter.

Related

• “It is much safer to be feared than loved, if one cannot be both.”

  Paraphrase or translation

• “A prince who wants to maintain himself must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or not use it, according to necessity.”

  Paraphrase or translation

• “Hence it is that all armed prophets have conquered, and the unarmed ones have been destroyed.”

  Paraphrase or translation

Related fallacy. Slippery slope. A slippery slope says a modest step will lead, without a shown mechanism, to an extreme result. Slopes can be real when each step is likely. The fallacy is the bare claim that one concession dissolves the whole line.

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