Because there are three ways of holding conquered states that are accustomed to living under their own laws and in freedom: the first is to ruin them, the next is to reside there in person, the third is to permit them to live under their own laws, taking tribute of them, and creating within them an oligarchy which will keep the state friendly to you.
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
"Men are won over as much by the love they are given as by the fear they are inspired with."
"It is always necessary to take the lesser evil as good."
"It is better to be impetuous than cautious, because Fortune is a woman, and if you wish to control her, it is necessary to beat and ill-use her."
"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."
"Men are more apt to forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony."
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.
Your cart is empty
