Machiavelli — "Men are generally so simple and so ready to obey present necessities, that one w…"
Men are generally so simple and so ready to obey present necessities, that one who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.
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More from Machiavelli
"For where the fear of God is wanting, it is inevitable that the kingdom will come to ruin, or that it will be sustained by the fear of a prince, which will supply the want of religion."
"The people, when they are not restrained by fear, are always ready to commit every kind of excess."
"It is not fortune, but their own indolence, that causes men to abandon themselves to their fate."
"A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests."
"There are three kinds of intellect: one which comprehends by itself; another that discerns what another comprehends; and a third which comprehends neither by itself nor by the showing of another."
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.