Machiavelli — "Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have e…"
Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them.
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More from Machiavelli
"No state is ever well established unless it has a good army."
"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."
"There are three kinds of intellect: one which comprehends by itself; another that discerns what another comprehends; and a third which comprehends neither by itself nor by the showing of another."
"It is necessary for a prince, if he wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case."
"The nature of men is such that they are much beholden to those who do them good, and they are much offended by those who do them evil."
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.