Machiavelli — "The prince who relies entirely on fortune is ruined when she changes."
The prince who relies entirely on fortune is ruined when she changes.
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More from Machiavelli
"There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you."
"Men are won over as much by the love they are given as by the fear they are inspired with."
"For the nature of men is such that they are much more bound by the benefits they confer than by those they receive."
"It is a common fault of men not to reckon on storms in fair weather."
"For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often even more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are."
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.