Machiavelli — "Politics have no relation to morals."
Politics have no relation to morals.
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More from Machiavelli
"The people, when they are not restrained by fear, are always ready to commit every kind of excess."
"The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him."
"It is much more difficult to injure one who is loved than one who is hated."
"When a prince has once made a reputation, he can easily overcome any enterprise, even if he has little strength."
"Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions."
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.