Machiavelli — "He who is not strong enough to be a fox and a lion at the same time, will be rui…"
He who is not strong enough to be a fox and a lion at the same time, will be ruined by either.
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More from Machiavelli
"The people, when they have a good leader, are not afraid to fight; and if they are not afraid, they are strong."
"For where the very safety of the country depends upon the resolution to be taken, no considerations whatever of justice or injustice, humanity or cruelty, nor of glory or disgrace, should be allowed t…"
"A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves."
"Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them, they take vengeance, whereas if you wound them incurably, they are unable to do so."
"It is not possible to provide against every inconvenience; but it is necessary to provide against the most important."
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.