Machiavelli — "The nature of men is such that they are much beholden to those who do them good,…"
The nature of men is such that they are much beholden to those who do them good, and they are much offended by those who do them evil.
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More from Machiavelli
"It is a common error among men to believe that the shortest way to conquer a thing is to try to obtain it by force."
"A prince must have no other object, no other thought, nor take anything else for his art, but war and its orders and discipline."
"It is much safer to be feared than loved because love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves…"
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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.