Machiavelli — "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Machiavelli
"It is a common error among men to believe that the shortest way to conquer a thing is to try to obtain it by force."
"He who desires to rule, must be prepared to use fraud and deceit."
"All men are bad and ever ready to use their inherent baseness whenever they have a free opportunity to do so."
"He who is the cause of another becoming powerful is ruined."
"Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved."
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.