Quote by Niccolò Machiavelli: “Fortune is the arbiter of half our actions, but she lets us govern the other half.”

Life is partly luck and partly within your control. Machiavelli is rejecting two extremes: the fatalist who thinks nothing they do matters, and the overconfident who thinks they can control everything. Wisdom lies in distinguishing which half is which and acting decisively on the half you own.

The Prince was published in 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death, during a period when Italian city-states were being overrun by French and Spanish armies. Machiavelli had seen firsthand how quickly political fortunes could collapse and was searching for principles that might allow a leader to survive such upheaval.

Florentine diplomat, historian, and political philosopher whose treatise The Prince, written in 1513 and published in 1532, fundamentally changed how political power is analysed. He is often described as the founder of modern political science.