Lehal Library

look at Italy, which has been both the scene of revolutionary changes and the agent that set them in motion, you’ll see it’s a land that has neither banks nor dykes to protect it. Had the country been properly protected, like Germany, Spain and France, either the flood wouldn’t have had such drastic effects or it wouldn’t have happened at all. I think that is all that need be said in general terms about how to deal with the problem of luck. Going into detail, though, we’ve all seen how a ruler may be doing well one day and then lose power the next without any apparent change in his character or qualities. I believe this is mostly due to the attitude I mentioned above: that is, the ruler trusts entirely to luck and collapses when it changes. I’m also convinced that the successful ruler is the one who adapts to changing times; while the leader who fails does so because his approach is out of step with circumstances. All men want glory and wealth, but they set out to achieve those goals in different ways. Some are cautious, others impul- sive; some use violence, others finesse; some are patient, others quite the opposite. And all these different approaches can be successful. It’s also true that two men can both be cautious but with different results: one is successful and the other fails. Or again you see two men being equally successful but with different approaches, one cautious, the other impulsive. This depends entirely on whether their approach suits the circum- stances, which in turn is why, as I said, two men with different approaches may both succeed while, of two with the same approach, one may succeed and the other not. This explains why people’s fortunes go up and down. If someone is behaving cautiously and patiently and the times and circumstances are such that the approach works, he’ll be successful. But if times and circumstances change, everything goes wrong for him, because he hasn’t changed his approach to match. You won’t find anyone shrewd enough to adapt his character like this, in part because you can’t alter your natural