Prince of Sisters (Essay Sample)

Prince of Sisters
Name
Institution
Date
Machiavelli uses many quotes from hi works to put across different messages. From his work, "The Prince”, he uses the quote, "There is nothing that uses itself up faster than generosity, for as you employ it you lose the means of employing it", in order to put across a particular message (Machiavelli, 2009). In this quotation, Machiavelli tries to imply the different ways in which people may take the acts of generosity. Generosity is usually an act that originates from the deep part of an individual’s heart. Literally, generosity means the act of kindly sharing whatever an individual possesses with those people he thinks that they are less fortunate. Generosity is a value that has to be taken with much appreciation and acceptance. This is because it represents the passion an individual has towards an unfortunate condition of other individuals. On the contrary, different individuals are bound to show appreciation for generosity in different ways. As much as everyone is found to accept something offered to him for free, not all the people who accept do it on a correct will. In most cases, the more you show acts if generosity and help people, they tend to forget the privilege that they are entitled to and deviate their mind towards questioning the generosity. For instance, many people would start asking where you got all that you are able to share willingly. Others may raise questions about the way you distribute the little that you are willing to share. In this case, most of them would start imagining that others get a bigger potion than what they are given. All these concepts are a controversy of what is actually supposed to take place. In the real sense, people are supposed to show more appreciation the more someone continues to help them. A practical example that I feel appropriately illustrates the quotation is the ruling of the former Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi. According to the actual situation, the condition that the people of Libya used to live in during the reign of their former leader was much different from the present. Gaddafi was able to provide for all the needs of his people that were vital for their well being. He paid for their medical and academic bills ensuring that no one lacked the opportunity of accessing the services among many other vital services. However, the reaction towards this generosity raised many questions among some of his people and from outsiders. Most people started questioning this capability since it was unique and had not been witnessed anywhere. For this reason, people were mobilized and that saw to the end of an era of the great leader. Completely believing that the leader was doing everything out of good will a...