Machiavelli — "There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others."
There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
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More from Machiavelli
"A prince who is not himself wise cannot be well advised."
"It is not possible to provide against every inconvenience; but it is necessary to provide against the most important."
"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."
"A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought… but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands."
"Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them, they take vengeance, whereas if you wound them incurably, they are unable to do so."
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.