All the same, this doesn't mean that the end justifies the means. Machiavelli never wrote those words, nor would he have been capable of it. His philosophy of necessity rests on the principle of the changeableness of the times and the unpredictability of political action. It would be impossible for the means to justify the end, since, at the moment one is acting, the end is still unknown. The end will always occur too late to justify the means of an action. To govern is to act blindly within the indeterminacy of the times.
-Patrick Boucheron, Machiavelli: The Art Of Teaching People What To Fear
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