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.
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"He who causes another to become powerful is ruined himself; because that power has been effected by him either by industry or by force, and both of these are suspicious to the one who has been raised …"
"Men are generally so simple and so ready to obey present necessities, that one who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived."
"Men are by nature much more inclined to evil than to good; and therefore, if you would have the good, you must put them under the necessity of being so."
"The people, when they have a good leader, are not afraid to fight; and if they are not afraid, they are strong."
"The wise man does at once what the fool does finally."
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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