Machiavelli — "The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of…"
The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.
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More from Machiavelli
"He who is not strong enough to be a fox and a lion at the same time, will be ruined by either."
"A man who is used to acting in one way, cannot change; because he cannot, he is ruined."
"The wise man does at once what the fool does finally."
"In every city these two opposite parties are to be found, arising from the desire of the people to be not oppressed, and the desire of the nobles to oppress."
"The injury that is to be done to a man must be such that one need not fear his revenge."
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.