From: MACHIAVELLI: Be the Wolf Among Sheep - Horses
Machiavelli was also the antithesis of his writings, all of what is referenced here. Never rose to any significant position, was an outcast. What makes him significant is his courage to say out loud what others did not, influenced the thinking and philosophy of a lot people, the way he brought in to question things that were not - at least openly - questioned before, or even truths that we would not want to accept to this day.
Politics is an unending knife fight.
It is not possible to be an effective leader and be good all the time.
Leadership requires ruthlessness. A leader cannot always be compassionate, loyal, humane and honest, because the very nature requires you to be cruel, disloyal, inhumane and dishonest.
It is better to be loved rather than feared, but it is safer to be feared. People are unreliable, selfish and their love, when it can and will change, be bought or otherwise. Fear is tangible, permanent. You can’t control what people love, but you can control what they fear. Leader should never be hated. Be loved if possible, feared if not, but be never hated.
It is admirable to be honest. But a cunning leader is more effective than a honest one. Circumstances change and require going back on word, lying, stabbing others in the back. If there is risk (or rather guarantee?) that others will lie, then being honest to a fault is giving opponents a clear advantage.
So you don’t need to have virtuous qualities, but you must seem to posses them. It take two things to win the adoration of people: appearances (not reality) and results (not methods).
Virtu vs Fortuna Prowess, strength of character, traits to achieve what you desire - vs - fortune, luck what we control, influence, learn, build - vs - what is out of our control Positive Fortuna requires the preparation of Virtu beforehand (like the umbrella of luck). Fortuna is dynamic and changing, so to meet Fortuna one must adapt with Virtu or die.
Inside everyone is a wolf (like shadow of Carl Jung) that is willing to do anything to achieve what it desires if and when push comes to shove. We must learn to integrate it with ourselves not suppress it.
The way the world should be and the way the world is. If one acts according to what the world should be, one is authoring their inevitable destruction. Boiled down
Machiavellian philosophy boils down to the main axiom of: one must live in accordance with how the world is, not how it should be.