He made bad and good rulers very much alike.

Otto Scott on Machiavelli, who was in many ways the father of modern politics:

Machiavelli rationalized despotism, but he also advised rulers to be careful to maintain what we today would call public relations: the patronage of the arts and artists together with conspicuous charities, in order to create popularity, and to mask their hold on power.  This double edged advice provided . . . a sop to the consciences of even “very religious kings.  [Because] he made the bad and the good very much alike.”  Rulers came to believe that their tenure depended upon lack of scruples.

Otto Scott, The Great Christian Revolution, p. 86 (quoting Lord Acton, Selected Writings of Lord Acton, vol. I, pp. 86, 87, J. Rufus Fears, editor).

The He made bad and good rulers very much alike. by Alan Burrow, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.