What Fortune can effect in human affairs, and how she may be withstood

I AM NOT ignorant that many have been and are of the opinion that human affairs are...governed by Fortune and...that men cannot alter them by any prudence of theirs...and...that they must leave everything to be determined by chance.

Often when I turn the matter over, I am in part inclined to agree with this opinion, which has had the readier acceptance in our own times from the great changes in things which we have seen, and every day see happen contrary to all human expectation. Nevertheless...I think it may be the case that Fortune is the mistress of one half our actions, and yet leaves the control of the other half, or a little less, to ourselves. And I would liken her to one of those wild torrents which, when angry, overflow the plains, sweep away trees and houses, and carry off soil from one bank to throw it down upon the other. Every one flees before them, and yields to their fury without the least power to resist. And yet, though this be their nature, it does not follow that in seasons of fair weather, men cannot, by constructing weirs and moles [or levees], take such precautions as will cause them when again in flood to pass off by some artificial channel, or at least prevent their course from being so uncontrolled and destructive. And so it is with Fortune, who displays her might where there is no organized strength to resist her, and directs her onset where she knows that there is neither barrier nor embankment to confine her.

(The Prince, by Niccolò Machiavelli)



To have a fortune, you have to make a fortune. Yes, yes...I will stop writing that so often. Or maybe to have me stop writing that, you'll have to make me stop writing that!

Machiavelli with his attempt to base virtue on virility transcending vice and virtue is a rather Nietzschean philosopher in trying to go beyond good and evil. Yet the knowledge of good and evil is a false promise and now to be known as being Machiavellian is a little better than being sadistic or Sadean, yet still considered evil. Perhaps Machiavelli was writing for the Prince of this world.