WHY I FELL IN LOVE WITH MACHIAVELLI (THE MISUNDERSTOOD BAD REPUTATION GUY)
- Larisa - LoQueArde
- Nov 29
- 3 min read
How a man from the 16th century can save your mind in the middle of 2025
There are authors who carry a shadow even before you open the book.
The name weighs, it sounds shady, as if you were about to read a villain’s manual.
And then you open it… and something else shows up.
You say Machiavellian and people hear:
coldness, manipulation, calculated evil.
A monster 😈
And what actually appears is a man writing from political mud, from human fragility, from the brutal observation of how people behave when life tightens.
And then it makes sense why he has such a bad reputation: because he sugarcoats nothing.
Machiavelli describes how people move when they’re scared, when they want to keep something, when they seek advantage, when they can’t sleep, when they’re suspicious.
He does it with a precision that knocks you off balance.
Not to justify, but so you understand the thing without decorations.
Reading him is like switching on a white light in a place where you were groping in the dark.
The light bothers you, but then it arranges the chaos as if trimming it with scissors.
And that clarity hurts, but at the same time, it straightens your spine.
He’s not talking about poetic justice, or karma, or vibes.
He talks about what happens when people go through fear, power, or scarcity.
And he writes it without ornaments because ornaments distract.
What remains is a sort of manual for staying whole in a world where many break without noticing (or maybe they do).
There are pages that feel like someone grabbing your shirt:
look closely at the scene
don’t cling to what you expected
observe what’s actually happening
He gives you a breath and leaves your mind sharper than before.
It works.
He puts the compass in your hand without asking who you are in the scene, he just locates you and the effect is simple: it clears.
He gives you one square meter of your own.
He doesn’t promise peace, but he gives you margin.
He doesn’t offer comfort, but he gives you criteria.
He doesn’t want you to be a hero or a victim.
He just wants you not to get lost in the whirlwind of others.
There are people who confuse goodness with sacrifice.
And that’s how they end up shattered.
Machiavelli proposes something a thousand times healthier:
Be good, but not naïve Be empathetic, but not surrendered
Be firm, but not cruel
It’s the balance nobody ever taught us.
Because nobody wants to teach people how not to be manipulable.
Machiavelli does.
When you read Machiavelli with a tired body and a full head, it becomes an act of care.
Not because he hugs you, but because he gives you back space.
Your own space—the one that shrinks the moment you get distracted.
And in the end, it also feels like a hug.
That’s when I understood why I fell in love with him.
Because he doesn’t seduce.
He steadies, clarifies, relieves.
He’s an author who helps you recover the edge.
Yours.
In a world where too many people live pushing into others’ edges.
He doesn’t ask you to confront
He doesn’t ask you to sacrifice yourself
He doesn’t ask you to become a martyr
He asks for something much smarter:
Govern yourself so you don’t end up governed by others
Machiavelli doesn’t teach you to dominate others.
He teaches you not to lose yourself in them.
his lucidity is an act of LOVE.
🖤Machiavelli frees you from guilt
🖤Machiavelli is the first philosopher who lets you breathe
🖤Machiavelli teaches you to withstand the noise without becoming noise
🖤Machiavelli teaches you not to expect the impossible
🖤Machiavelli lets you be good… without being devoured 🖤Machiavelli isn’t coldness; it’s mature tenderness 🖤Machiavelli is practical, real, and fiercely human 🖤Machiavelli isn’t a guru: he’s a shield shaped like a heart
Now you understand why he matters so much
Why he’s been misinterpreted for five centuries
Why he endures
Why he returns
Because in a world where everyone wants you to be light, Machiavelli teaches you something better:
how not to burn out
He arranged a lot of things I had scattered.
If he moved something in you too
we keep the conversation going in the Blog Ardiente
That’s where I leave what I’m understanding
while I read, work, get tired, and start again
Whenever you want, stop by
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