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The Prince And The Sermon On The Mount Comparison

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The Prince by Machiavelli and The Sermon on the Mount symbolize two opposing perspectives on power and morality. The Prince advocates brutal tactics to maintain power, while the Sermon on the Mount emphasizes love, forgiveness, and humility as the route to justice. These books have significantly impacted politics and ethics, with The Prince notorious for advocating immoral political training and The Sermon on the Mount molding Christian religious philosophy and morals. As well as the varying audience and goal, The Prince's message differs significantly from The Sermon on the Mount. The political instability of Machiavelli's era, particularly the unstable and violent conditions that characterized Italy in the sixteenth century, affected his …show more content…

Machiavelli did not take kindness as a virtue, he believed it only showed weakness as a leader. His guidelines show the absolute opposite and emphasize the use of force, deception, and manipulation to maintain power. Throughout The Prince, Machiavelli conveys the tone of a realist who believes power is the ultimate goal of politics, and that a ruler must do whatever it takes to maintain it. He also supports his points with examples in history as he saw failures and created his own set of rules to follow to be the supreme ruler that does not make the same mistakes as a weak leader would. He emphasizes that rulers should be feared rather than worshiped, and that kindness is the foe of political …show more content…

This opposed prevailing assumptions in both religion and politics, proving that the teachings of Christ were a call to live a good and just life independent of social or political circumstances. Throughout history, his teachings had an impact on numerous Christian scholars and leaders who advocate Christ's study of love, forgiveness, and compassion and have affected Christian ethics and theology. The Sermon on the Mount has influenced movements such as pacifism, nonviolence, and civil disobedience, encouraging individuals to advocate for justice and

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Then for Machiavelli he talks about how a prince should show no fear instead for him to show that he is the one with power. That a prince's people should fear him. Both authors go on to talk on how their people react based on the prince and princesse act. The authors then go on to explain how they should view and run their people. Both authors also reflect the fact that the way their people are going to act towards them is mainly based off of how they treat them.

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Machiavelli argues the perfect prince will be both feared and loved by his people, and if unable to be both he will make himself feared and not hated. Machiavelli believes it is much safer to be feared than to be loved because people are less likely to offend and stand up against strong characters, also people are less concerned in offending a prince who has made himself loved. Accordingly, Machiavelli believes generosity is harmful to your reputation and the choice between being generous or stingy, merciful or cruel, honest or deceitful, should only be important if it aids the prince in political power. All in all, Machiavelli believes the ruler must be a great deceiver and do what is essential to uphold power over the

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So, in Machiavelli’s point of view, as a politician, the purpose and intentions of one’s generosity is solely to get to their desired position, in this case the prince. The politicians will say numerous things they will do when they become a prince; however, once they actually become one, they no longer feel obliged to keep their promises, and most of the promises they made were merely to get the votes. This results in only a small fraction of the promises being kept, and these kinds of politicians are not so hard to find even in today’s

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REAL-POLITIK: THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS “Let a prince therefore aim at conquering and maintaining the state, and the means will always be judged honourable and praised by everyone.” “For where the very safety of the country depends upon the resolution to be taken, no consideration of justice or injustice, humanity or cruelty, of glory or of shame, should be allowed to prevail. But putting all other considerations aside, the only question should be; what course will save the life and liberty of the country?” Machiavelli emphasized that being a good politician doesn’t always necessarily equate to being a good person. However, Machiavelli never praised immorality.

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He wrote The Prince to try to win the favor of Lorenzo de’ Medici, who was the leader of the Italian city of Florentine at the time of its’ writing. He claimed that Medici was the only man who could settle the fighting in Italy. Due to this bias, Machiavelli did not show his true political beliefs in The Prince because he needed to promote monarchy to appeal to the ruling class of his country. With Machiavelli being once exiled from Italy by the Medici, the assertion that Machiavelli abandoned his true beliefs in the writing of The Prince is very much plausible. This validates that the contents of The Discourses more accurately represents his opinions, without the consideration of

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Machiavelli's The Prince was one of the first humanist works of the Renaissance. In fact it is a show-stopper, a literary masterpiece of sorts. Yet this work has been eagerly bantered throughout the hundreds of years and stays a standout amongst the most controversial bits of composing today. Albeit numerous faultfinders consider The Prince a parody, essentially an attempt to uncover the issues with the decision class, most see Machiavelli's act as a genuine attempt to lay the foundation for the reunification of Italy under the Medici family of Florence. Machiavelli's thought that the model prince ought to utilize a variety of strategies to secure his energy in particular that the end justifies the methods is the most controversial issue brought

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Niccolo Machiavelli While Machiavelli valued being compassionate, he knew in order to be a successful ruler one must not be afraid to strike fear into his subjects. Machiavelli seems to have many thoughts on how in order to be a successful ruler, one must rule through fear. In, The Prince, he talks about how in order to be a successful prince one must not be afraid to be cruel and rule through fear. While being a kind and compassionate ruler is something to be admired, it is not always the best way to rule. Machiavelli wrote, “A prince, therefore, must not mind incurring the charge of cruelty for the purpose of keeping his subjects united and faithful.”

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Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian philosopher, writer, and politician who lived during the Renaissance period. He is best known for his book "The Prince," which is a treatise on political theory and leadership. In this book, Machiavelli discusses his views on commoners and nobility and how they impact leadership (Machiavelli, 2003). Machiavelli believed that most commoners were generally weak and easily swayed by their emotions (Machiavelli, 2003). He believed that they lacked the intelligence and foresight necessary to make good decisions and that they were easily manipulated by those in power.

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The Prince in the year of 1513. This was a prime example of power and fear since it was created as a guide for rulers of the Italian city states. Within his Machiavelli’s text, he states that it is better to be feared rather than being loved. He believed that people would betray those that were loved, but would not dare to betray a feared ruler. Machiavelli viewed humans as greedy and selfish.

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Machiavelli was not looking for princes to become cruel, militant tyrants, but rather wanted effectiveness to unite a kingdom and to unite the people. Through Francesco Sforza, Cesare Borgia, and even Pope Julius II, the author is stating the unspoken truth, supporting it with the figures he derived inspiration, those who used underhanded methods when needed to hold reigns on their power, that "for a man who strives after goodness in all his acts is sure to come to ruin, since there are so many men who are not good. Hence it is necessary that a prince who is interested in his survival learn to be other than good, making use of his capacity or refraining from it according to need" (Machiavelli

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In the support of that thesis, Machiavelli advices rulers to always ask themselves whether such a policy is helpful to fulfill their objective of sustaining power. According to him, it does not matter for the ruler to be considered as cruel by his subjects. As long as the effect is to retain the state power and prevent the downfall of his reign; such kind of consideration does not have any impact in itself. Thus no ruler should mind being called cruel for what he does to keep his subjects united and to keep control of the state. A wise ruler chooses to be feared rather than loved since the need to be loved makes him dependent on others as opposed to the fundamental rule, to achieve independence from the favor and recourses of anyone else

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A comparative study of The Prince (1513), a political treatise by Machiavelli and Julius Caesar (1599), a historical tragedy by Shakespeare facilitates the intertwined values of political stability and loyalty, honour and virtue in spite of their differing contexts. Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince reflects the Renaissance Humanist ideals transposing from a conventional form by exploring the struggles of maintaining power and moral principles. Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar embraces the nuances of Elizabethan England by disguising it as a Roman history play fictionalising aspects of history, delving into humanity’s hubristic ambition for power which inevitably entails the sacrifice of moral principles. Both Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Machiavelli’s

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The Prince Machiavelli is the author of the book “The Prince”, which consists of inspiration from the Roman Empire in order to change Italy for the better. Machiavelli is inspired by how unified the Roman Empire was and realized that’s how it became so powerful. As a result Machiavelli wrote a book about what type of leader it would take to build a new and improved unified Italy. When Machiavelli wrote “The Prince” it was almost intended to recollect a hand book for rulers; however, his style of teaching was different than that of an “ethical” man.

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The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli has been passed down for generations to great rulers to inspire and guide them through their leadership years. Throughout The Prince there are many valuable lessons rulers from all time periods can use. Machiavelli advises rulers on how to handle new conquered territories. There are many sections in the book that help a ruler gage if he/ she is a good or poor ruler.

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Machiavelli relies on his knowledge of history to conclude that Princes who abide by a standard moral code rarely succeed. He stands by his argument that the end justifies the means for the prince. For the prince, the means is whatever is in his best interests, not necessarily the interests of his people. Sometimes, a Prince must create his new standard of morality, and sometimes change it, to meet his new means and maintain power. He believed that morality is a fluid concept, changing as the interests and the challenges of the Prince evolve.

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