Talk:the end justifies the means

This phrase is ridiculous because it ignores the fact that the side effect of the means is part of the end.


 * Maybe, but we're just trying to catalogue the words people use and what they mean! Things like logical fallacies are usually beyond the remit of a dictionary. Equinox 19:55, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

proverb (basic truth) vs. phrase (possibility of being highly controversial)
The words proverb is defined as A phrase expressing a basic truth which may be applied to common situations here. Since it is not "basic truth", let me change the word proverb into phrase and insert info at the beginning of the gloss saying that it is controversial.--Dixtosa 19:50, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
 * This is the kind of thing that is considered a proverb by most who study proverbs (See Proverbs and Proverb.). Wolfgang Mieder is a leading scholar of proverbs, the field of paremiology (Paremiology). DCDuring TALK 23:17, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Reflected on The Prince?
It is not fair to say that The Prince reflects that the "end justify the means". The author critiques that people do not ask for the means which the prince resorted to, when they are satisfied with the ends. This is a finding, and not a recommendation.

It would be fairer to say that:


 * Widely attributed to Machiavelli's The Prince, which does reflect on this philosophy but does not use the phrase in this wording

--Pinnecco (talk) 09:07, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

First appearance in English?
I'd appreciate it if anyone could tell me of the first occurrence of the phrase in English. I've looked around, and seen Sophocles, Demosthenes, Ovid, Machiavelli and even Sergey Nechayev, posited as the originator of the phrase (or at least the sentiment embodied in it), but I'm interested in who first rendered it into English as "the end justifies the means". I ask because in Book 3 of Wordsworth's The Excursion he writes: "Slight, if you will, the means; but spare to slight/The end of those, who did, by system, rank," and so on. I'm wondering if there's an earlier comparison of this sort between "means" and "end". Both words, by the way, are italicized in the book which wikisource transcribes. Vanitasvanitatum69 (talk) 22:29, 2 March 2022 (UTC)