# Chapter XXIII — In What Mode Flatterers Are to Be Avoided

I do not want to leave out an important point and an error from which princes defend themselves with difficulty, unless they are very prudent or make good choices. And these are the flatterers of whom courts are full; for men take such pleasure in their own affairs and so deceive themselves there that they defend themselves with difficulty from this plague, and in trying to defend oneself from it one risks the danger of becoming contemptible. For there is no other way to guard oneself from flattery unless men understand that they do not offend you in telling you the truth; but when everyone can tell you the truth, they lack reverence for you. Therefore, a prudent prince must hold to a third mode, choosing wise men in his state; and only to these should he give freedom191 to speak the truth to him, and of those things only that he asks about and nothing else. But he should ask them about everything and listen to their opinions; then he should decide by himself, in his own mode; and with these councils and with each member of them he should behave in such a mode that everyone knows that the more freely he speaks, the more he will be accepted. Aside from these, he should not want to hear anyone; he should move directly to the thing that was decided and be obstinate in his decisions. Whoever does otherwise either falls headlong because of flatterers or changes often because of the variability of views, from which a low estimation of him arises.

I want to bring up a modern example in this regard. Father Luca, a man of the present emperor Maximilian,192 speaking of his majesty, told how he did not take counsel from anyone and never did anything in his own mode; this arose from holding to a policy contrary to that given above. For the emperor is a secretive man who does not communicate his plans to anyone, nor seek their views; but as in putting them into effect they begin to be known and disclosed, they begin to be contradicted by those whom he has around him, and he, an agreeable193 person, is dissuaded from them.194 From this it arises that the things he does on one day he destroys on another, that no one ever understands what he wants or plans to do, and that one cannot found oneself on his decisions.

A prince, therefore, should always take counsel, but when he wants, and not when others want it; on the contrary, he should discourage everyone from counseling him about anything unless he asks it of them. But he should be a very broad questioner, and then, in regard to the things he asked about, a patient listener to the truth; indeed, he should become upset when he learns that anyone has any hesitation to speak it to him. And since many esteem that any prince who establishes an opinion of himself as prudent is so considered not because of his nature but because of the good counsel he has around him, without doubt they are deceived. For this is a general rule that never fails: that a prince who is not wise by himself cannot be counseled well, unless indeed by chance he should submit himself to one alone to govern him in everything, who is a very prudent man. In this case he could well be, but it would not last long because that governor would in a short time take away his state. But by taking counsel from more than one, a prince who is not wise will never have united counsel, nor know by himself how to unite them. Each one of his counselors will think of his own interest; he will not know how to correct them or understand them. And they cannot be found otherwise, because men will always turn out bad for you unless they have been made good by a necessity. So one concludes that good counsel, from wherever it comes, must arise from the prudence of the prince, and not the prudence of the prince from good counsel.