Machiavelli — "All men are bad and ever ready to use their inherent baseness whenever they have…"
All men are bad and ever ready to use their inherent baseness whenever they have a free opportunity to do so.
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More from Machiavelli
"The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves."
"For a man who wishes to make a profession of good in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good."
"It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved."
"Men must either be caressed or annihilated; they will revenge themselves for slight wrongs, but not for great ones."
"God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us."
About Machiavelli (1469-1527)
Florentine diplomat and political theorist whose The Prince (written 1513) became the founding text of political realism and gave us the adjective 'Machiavellian.' Closely associated with Francesco Guicciardini (fellow Florentine political analyst and historian). For an intellectual contrast, see Erasmus of Rotterdam, Dutch humanist and The Education of a Christian Prince author (1516) — Erasmus's princely-instruction manual was published three years after Machiavelli's, for the same European audience, and is the explicit Christian-virtue alternative to Machiavellian power-realism. The cleanest 'realism vs idealism' founding pairing in modern political theory.