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
"Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great."
"There is no surer way of holding an acquired state than by ruining it."
"Injuries ought to be done all at one time, so that, being tasted less, they offend less; benefits ought to be given little by little, so that the flavor of them may last longer."
"A man who is used to acting in one way, cannot change; because he cannot, he is ruined."
"For of men it may generally be affirmed, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous."
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.