The lion cannot guard himself from the toils, nor the fox from wolves. A Prince must therefore be a fox to discern toils, and a lion to drive off wolves. Discover the etymology behind the common description of "Machiavellian" to describe deception, dishonesty, and cruelty to meet a goal. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli was written as a means of governing using means that were meant to deceive and manipulate a government's constituency even to the point of advocating the use of evil as a means of political expediency. In this classic work, the end justifies the means reigns paramount to Machiavelli's system of government.