short but remarkable!

For me Machiavelli was the first to have understood an essential thing: separate power and religion.
By making the "political" a science like any other, with its rules, codes, practices to avoid, it gives us a few lines an outline of the qualities it takes to gain power, and keep ...
I'm not quite in the opinion cited below who says that this book is only valid in its context, and thus does not apply to any form of power, because for me Machiavelli gives the "keys" and those -C are universal and valid regardless of the time. Btw is it a hazard if one still quoted today, and that many of his detractors are following or have followed his advice in secret?

A small masterpiece that must be read completely, which is all the more sense in today's world.