Machiavelli — "For it can be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, fickle, feigners …"
For it can be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, fickle, feigners and dissemblers, shirkers of dangers, eager for gain.
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"Men are always averse to new things, and it is very hard to persuade them to change."
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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.