Machiavelli — "Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the gre…"
Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number of men who are not good.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Machiavelli
"He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command."
"It is much safer to be feared than loved because love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves…"
"Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great."
"In the actions of men, and especially of princes, from which there is no appeal, the end justifies the means."
"There are three kinds of intellect: one which comprehends by itself; another that discerns what another comprehends; and a third which comprehends neither by itself nor by the showing of another."
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.