Machiavelli — "The end justifies the means."
The end justifies the means.
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More from Machiavelli
"He who desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with the assumption that all men are bad, and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it."
"To conquer a people, and then not to live among them, is to lose them."
"One ought never to allow disorders to take their course for the sake of avoiding war, for war is not thereby avoided, but only deferred to your disadvantage."
"It is much more difficult to injure one who is loved than one who is hated."
"The best fortress is to be found in the love of the people, for although you may have fortresses, they will not save you if you are hated by the people."
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.