1No animal is harder to please, none needs to be handled with greater skill than man, none should be spared more. 1For what is more foolish than to be ashamed to vent one's anger on beasts of burden and dogs, and yet for a man to be under a man on the worst of terms? 1We treat diseases, and are not angry with them; 1and yet this too is a disease, a disease of the mind; 1it needs gentle treatment, and a physician who is not at all hostile to the patient. 2It is the mark of a bad doctor to despair so as not to treat: the one to whom the safety of all has been entrusted ought to act in the same way in the case of those whose minds are affected, not throwing away hope quickly nor pronouncing the signs fatal; 2let him wrestle with the vices, resist them, reproach some with their disease, deceive others with gentle treatment, as one who will cure them more quickly and better with remedies that beguile; 2let the prince take care not only for health but also for an honourable scar.
3A king gains no glory from savage punishment (for who doubts that he can inflict it?), but on the contrary the greatest glory if he restrains his power, if he has rescued many from the anger of others and sacrificed none to his own.