Machiavelli — "Men are generally so simple and so ready to obey present necessities, that one w…"
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.
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More from Machiavelli
"The Roman state was ruined by the ambition of the people as much as by the ambition of the nobility."
"The promises of men are not to be relied on, unless they are made under such circumstances that the promiser cannot break them without ruin."
"A man who is used to acting in one way, cannot change; because he cannot, he is ruined."
"He who is the cause of another becoming powerful is ruined."
"A prince must be a fox, to know how to avoid snares; and a lion, to terrify wolves."
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.