Machiavelli — "Men are always more easily deceived when they are trying to deceive others."
Men are always more easily deceived when they are trying to deceive others.
Men are always more easily deceived when they are trying to deceive others.
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"A man who is used to acting in one way, cannot change; because he cannot, he is ruined."
"It is much more difficult to injure one who is loved than one who is hated."
"It is not possible to provide against every inconvenience; but it is necessary to provide against the most important."
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."
"Hence it comes that all armed prophets have conquered and unarmed ones have failed."
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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