Machiavelli — "For of men it may generally be affirmed, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false…"
For of men it may generally be affirmed, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous.
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More from Machiavelli
"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."
"Hence it comes that all armed prophets have conquered and unarmed ones have failed."
"He who desires to rule, must be prepared to use fraud and deceit."
"He who blinds himself to reality must prepare to be destroyed."
"There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others."
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.