It being my intention to write a thing which shall
be useful to him who apprehends it, it appears to me more appropriate
to follow up the real truth of the matter than the imagination of
it; for many have pictured republics and principalities which in fact
have never been known or seen, because how one lives is so far distant
from how one ought to live, that he who neglects what is done for
what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation;
for a man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue
soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.
Machaivelli's Prince
