Machiavelli — "It is always necessary to take the lesser evil as good."
It is always necessary to take the lesser evil as good.
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More from Machiavelli
"The desire to acquire is truly a very natural and common thing; and when men who are able to do so acquire, they are always praised and not blamed; but when they are not able to do so, and yet wish to…"
"In the actions of men, and especially of princes, from which there is no appeal, the end justifies the means."
"Men are by nature much more inclined to evil than to good; and therefore, if you would have the good, you must put them under the necessity of being so."
"God does not want to do everything, so as not to deprive us of our free will and part of the glory that belongs to us."
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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.