Machiavelli — "There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men unde…"
There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.
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More from Machiavelli
"I say that there are three kinds of brains: one that understands things by itself, one that can appreciate what others understand, and one that understands neither by itself nor through others."
"It is not the well-being of individuals, but the general good, that makes cities great."
"Men are so simple and yield so readily to the necessities of the moment that he who deceives will always find someone who will let himself be deceived."
"The Romans, in order to hold Capua, Alba, and Ostia, did not destroy them, but gave them their own laws and left them free, and they did not hold them without difficulty."
"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.
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