A word to the foolhardy

 Macchiavelli, in his On Conspiracies, has this to say:

We shall deal in the first part of this discourse with conspiracies against a prince, and shall inquire first as to their causes, which are many. There is, however, one which is much more important than all the rest. This consists in the universal hatred a prince may evoke, for when a prince has aroused such universal hatred it is to be expected that there will be certain persons to whom he has given greater offence and that they will seek vengeance. This desire will be intensified by the universal ill will which they notice has been aroused against him. A prince, therefore, should avoid incurring these personal reproaches, and since what he has to do in order to avoid them has been discussed elsewhere I shall refrain from discussing it here: I mention it because, if he does guard against this, the mere giving of offence to individuals will evoke less hostility. The reason is, first, that one rarely comes across men so indignant at an unjust act as to endanger themselves to such an extent by seeking vengeance; and secondly, that, should they actually be inclined to do this and have the requisite power, they are restrained by the universal goodwill which they see that the prince enjoys.

Injuries may affect either a man’s property, his life or his honour. The threat of bloodshed is more dangerous than is the shedding of blood. To threaten to shed blood is, in fact, extremely dangerous: whereas to shed it is attended with no danger at all, for a dead man cannot contemplate vengeance, and those that remain alive usually leave you to do the contemplating. But a man who has been threatened and sees that he must of necessity either do something or be for it, has been turned into a real menace for the prince, as we shall cite cases presently to show.

There is another kind of injury, more severe to a man than injury to his property, his life or his honour, and that is injury to his children. The attachment of parents to their offspring, and the investment they make in them, may be observed in all higher animals whose progeny need nurturing to bring them to adulthood.

Of these animals, none is more ferocious in the defence of its young than Homo sapiens. Princelings, beware!