Machiavelli’s The Prince is a short book about power: how people win it, keep it and lose it, and how they behave around it. In Hero, you describe one real situation, and the book reads it with you: the four or five chapters that matter most for you, Machiavelli’s own words, what they mean for your situation, and steps you can try.
When it helps
Office politics, a new job or a promotion, a team you’ve just taken over, a boss or rival who doesn’t play fair, envy, betrayal, or knowing when to act. It works in families and friendships too, wherever power and position shape how people behave.
It is the wrong book for grief, illness, burnout, loneliness or finding calm. For those, Hero suggests Meditations, or Too Busy to Live for time and burnout.
How Hero reads it
Machiavelli wrote for rulers, and you are rarely the prince: more often a newcomer, an adviser, a manager or someone caught in other people’s politics. Hero says which role fits you and reads each chapter from there. Where Machiavelli is harsh, it says what he meant and what you can take from it, without pretending he was gentler than he was.
Ambition is welcome. Before your reading you say what you won’t do, and every step it suggests stays honest and inside those lines. It never helps deceive, sabotage or get back at anyone.
In Machiavelli’s words
“It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.”
“The first impression that one gets of a ruler and of his brains is from seeing the men that he has about him.”
“Nevertheless, that our freewill may not be altogether extinguished, I think it may be true that fortune is the ruler of half our actions, but that she allows the other half or a little less to be governed by us.”
The dedication and twenty-six chapters
Tap any chapter for our one-line summary. Your reading picks the four or five that fit your situation.
DedicationWhy read a book about power?
Machiavelli offers his hard-won knowledge as a gift: you see a mountain best from the valley, and the people best from the top.
Chapter IWhat kind of position do you hold?
States are republics or monarchies, inherited or new, won by your own strength, someone else’s, luck or merit.
Chapter IIWhy is inherited power easy to keep?
Power that people are used to needs little effort to hold; every change makes the next change easier.
Chapter IIIWhy do new positions go wrong?
When you take over, you make enemies of those you displaced and can’t satisfy those who helped you; see problems early, and don’t make someone else powerful at your own expense.
Chapter IVOne boss, or many little lords?
An organization run by one person through appointees is hard to take but easy to keep; one run through independent barons is easy to enter and hard to hold.
Chapter VWhat about people used to running themselves?
A group used to running itself never forgets its freedom; the workable way to lead it is through people of its own.
Chapter VIWhy is starting something new so hard?
Those who rise by their own ability struggle to get in but hold on easily; reformers face fierce enemies and only lukewarm friends.
Chapter VIIWhat if you got here by luck or someone’s favor?
Rising on someone else’s power or good fortune is easy; staying there is hard unless you quickly lay your own foundations.
Chapter VIIICan harsh measures ever be done well?
Harsh acts done once, quickly, for real necessity, and then turned into benefits do less damage than harshness that drags on.
Chapter IXWho should you build your support on?
Someone raised up by ordinary people only needs to avoid oppressing them; a leader without the people’s goodwill has nothing to fall back on in hard times.
Chapter XCan you stand on your own?
Measure your strength by whether you could hold out alone; people grow as attached to you through what they give for you as through what you give them.
Chapter XIWhat keeps old institutions standing?
Some institutions are won by ability or luck but kept by long tradition; Machiavelli shows how one pope built power with money and force.
Chapter XIIWhy can’t you rely on hired loyalty?
People who serve only for pay are brave in good times and vanish in bad; ruin is just postponed until the test comes.
Chapter XIIIWhy not just borrow strength?
Borrowed strength either fails you, weighs on you, or ties your hands; like David refusing Saul’s armor, fight with your own.
Chapter XIVWhat should you be practicing in quiet times?
Keep studying and practicing your craft in peacetime, so that when fortune turns you’re ready; being unprepared makes you despised.
Chapter XVMust you be good at all costs?
How people actually live is far from how they ought to live; someone good in everything gets hurt among those who aren’t, so learn when not to be.
Chapter XVIIs generosity always wise?
Generosity used to buy a reputation drains you until you become poor or grasping; being thought careful with money costs less than being hated for taking.
Chapter XVIIIs it better to be loved or feared?
Best to be both; if you must choose, respect backed by clear consequences lasts longer than goodwill — but never become hated.
Chapter XVIIIDo you have to keep every promise?
Fight with law when you can and force when you must; be a fox to see traps and a lion to scare off wolves; most people judge by what they see.
Chapter XIXHow do you avoid being hated or despised?
People are content if you leave their property and honor alone; you become despised by seeming fickle, frivolous, timid or indecisive.
Chapter XXDo walls really protect you?
Trusting and equipping people wins their loyalty, and the best protection is not being hated by them.
Chapter XXIShould you pick a side or stay neutral?
Great undertakings earn respect; when others fight, declaring yourself is safer than neutrality, which leaves you prey to the winner.
Chapter XXIIWhat do the people around you say about you?
People judge you first by those you keep close; a helper who thinks first of himself will never be loyal.
Chapter XXIIIHow do you get honest advice?
Flattery is everywhere; let a few wise people tell you the truth when you ask, then decide for yourself — good advice depends on the one who takes it.
Chapter XXIVWhy did they lose what they had?
Leaders who lose their place should blame their own complacency, not fortune: nobody plans for storms in fair weather.
Chapter XXVHow much is down to luck?
Fortune rules about half of what happens; build your dams in calm weather, and fit your way of acting to the times.
Chapter XXVIIs this the moment to act?
Machiavelli’s call to seize a rare moment and set things right, with your own strength and the right moment together.
The translation
We quote Luigi Ricci’s translation, first published by Oxford University Press in 1903, from its 1909 printing, checked word for word against the 1921 printing. Ricci died in 1915, so his translation is in the public domain. Your reading is written by AI; only the quotations are Machiavelli’s words, exactly as Ricci translated them.
The other books in Hero: Meditations, The Art of War and Too Busy to Live. See all of Hero