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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"A prince must have no other object, no other thought, nor take anything else for his art, but war and its orders and discipline; for this is the only art that belongs to him who rules."
"A prince, therefore, must not mind incurring the charge of cruelty for the purpose of keeping his subjects united and loyal; for, with a very few examples, he will be more merciful than those who, fro…"
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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.