Introduction

A prince should never join in an aggressive alliance with someone more powerful than himself, unless it is a matter of necessity. . . . Then, no government should ever imagine that it can always adopt a safe course; rather, it should regard all possible courses of action risky. This is the way things are: whenever one tries to escape one danger, one runs into another. Prudence consists in being able to assess the nature of a particular threat and in accepting the lesser evil.