The Prince begins with a cold observation: hereditary rulers coast on habit, but a new ruler inherits nothing except expectations. Everyone who helped him rise expects to be better off — and no one can satisfy them all.

“Men change their rulers willingly, hoping to better themselves, and this hope induces them to take up arms against him who rules: wherein they are deceived, because they afterwards find by experience they have gone from bad to worse.”

The new ruler is doubly bound, Machiavelli notes: he cannot fully reward the allies who raised him, yet he cannot act against them either, because he owes them. Meanwhile, everyone displaced by his arrival is watching for a stumble.

The lesson is not cynicism but arithmetic: goodwill at the start of any new role is a loan against expected improvement, not a gift. Repay it quickly, or it converts to resentment.