Machiavelli — "The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the me…"
The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
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More from Machiavelli
"Injuries ought to be done all at one time, so that, being tasted less, they offend less; benefits ought to be given little by little, so that the flavor of them may last longer."
"A prince must be a fox, to know how to avoid snares; and a lion, to terrify wolves."
"The Romans, in order to hold Capua, Alba, and Ostia, did not destroy them, but gave them their own laws and left them free, and they did not hold them without difficulty."
"In the actions of men, and especially of princes, from which there is no appeal, the end justifies the means."
"Men are always averse to new things, and it is very hard to persuade them to change."
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.
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