Machiavelli — "It is not the well-being of individuals, but the general good, that makes cities…"
It is not the well-being of individuals, but the general good, that makes cities great.
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More from Machiavelli
"A prince must have no other object, no other thought, nor take anything else for his art, but war and its orders and discipline."
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."
"Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great."
"For there is no other way of guarding oneself from flatterers than by letting men understand that to tell you the truth will not offend you."
"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…"
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.