Machiavelli — "The common people are always caught by appearances and by the outcome of a thing…"
The common people are always caught by appearances and by the outcome of a thing; and in the world there are only the common people.
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"There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others."
"It is not fortune, but their own indolence, that causes men to abandon themselves to their fate."
"The nature of men is such that they are much beholden to those who do them good, and they are much offended by those who do them evil."
"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…"
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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.