Machiavelli — "He who is the cause of another becoming powerful is ruined."
He who is the cause of another becoming powerful is ruined.
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More from Machiavelli
"Men must either be caressed or annihilated; they will revenge themselves for slight wrongs, but not for great ones."
"There are three kinds of intellects: one understands things by itself, the other discerns what others understand, and the third understands neither by itself nor through others. The first is excellent…"
"The vulgar are always taken by appearances and by the outcome of a thing; and in the world there are only the vulgar."
"Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great."
"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.