Machiavelli — "The wise man does at once what the fool does finally."
The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.
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More from Machiavelli
"For he who is not strong enough to protect himself must seek protection from others."
"Men are always averse to new things, and it is very hard to persuade them to change."
"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."
"A wise prince, therefore, ought to find a means by which his subjects will always in every sort and kind of circumstance have need of the state and of him, and then they will always be faithful to him…"
"He who builds on the people, builds on mud."
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.