It seems that we must be always prepared on the border between involvement and non-involvement in power. Otherwise we will be trapped.

Because we cannot hold out hope that anyone within power will always do good. Even a king, Machiavelli said, "must acquire the power to be not good."

Italians have been reading this kind of advice ever since Machiavelli's treatise The Prince circulated in the 16th century and made Machiavelli famous as a sly whisperer