Machiavelli — "Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves aga…"
Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.
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"Hence it comes that all armed prophets have conquered and unarmed ones have failed."
"He who blinds himself to reality must prepare to be destroyed."
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"One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived."
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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.