So a prince who wants to maintain his authority must learn not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires. Although he argues that politicians who try to be good despite the good of the state are not successful politicians, he also recognizes the importance of necessity in immoral actions. He never argues that immoral actions could ever be considered right, only that they might be required as a politician. Machiavelli states that the end can justify the means, however he never encourages violence. It also opposes excessive or prolonged violence, underlining its necessity. Opposes excessive violence as it can be harmful to the state. Machiavelli advises that a prince carefully calculate all the evil deeds he needs to do to secure his power, and then perform them all in one fell swoop, so that he does not have to commit any more evil deeds for the rest of his reign. This way, his subjects will slowly forget his cruel actions and his reputation can recover. Princes who fail to do so, who falter in their ruthlessness, find their problems multiplying over time and are forced to commit evil deeds during their reign. In this way they continually ruin their reputation and alienate their people. He states that it is better to be feared than loved, but not at the expense of the politician's reputation or relationship with his people. He also refers to violence as a criminal virtue and emphasizes the need to use it only when necessary. While supporting the use of violence rather than a path of non-violence, he specifies that it is for the common good. If violence is held back, the politician is forced to carry out even more evil actions. Although he recognizes the need to commit bad deeds, he agrees with Plato that ideally the politician should be one