“Machiavelli is the complete contrary of a machiavellian, since he describes the tricks of power and “gives the whole show away.” The seducer and the politician, who live in the dialectic and have a feeling and instinct for it, try their best to keep it hidden.”

— Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Source: In Praise of Philosophy (1963), p. 59
Context: Machiavelli is the complete contrary of a machiavellian, since he describes the tricks of power and “gives the whole show away.” The seducer and the politician, who live in the dialectic and have a feeling and instinct for it, try their best to keep it hidden.

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Maurice Merleau-Ponty 24

French phenomenological philosopher 1908–1961

Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 99

“Maurice Joly: In “Caesar” I bluntly accused our emperor of evil offenses…in ‘’’this’’’ book I expose the nature of the man’s mind, how he thinks, y’see!
Alphonse: But, Maurice, this Napoleon has seduced the public with social gifts…libraries and wars to give them national patriotic pride.
Maurice Joly: BAH! That is the kind of pallitative all dictators give their masses! But at what price? I ask you!
Alphonse: So…you show his plan by the dialogue of Machiavelli who is known as a cunning manipulator of political power, eh?
Maurice Joly: Yes, this is the clearest way to show the similarity of Napoleon’s mind to Machiavelli’s!
Alphonse: Hmmm! A clever device I must admit!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), p.13

“Give him a chance, not push him up if he will not be pushed. Help any man who stumbles; if he lies down, it is a poor job to try to carry him; but if he is a worthy man, try your best to see that he gets a chance to show the worth that is in him.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The New Nationalism (1910)
Context: The right to regulate the use of wealth in the public interest is universally admitted. Let us admit also the right to regulate the terms and conditions of labor, which is the chief element of wealth, directly in the interest of the common good. The fundamental thing to do for every man is to give him a chance to reach a place in which he will make the greatest possible contribution to the public welfare. Understand what I say there. Give him a chance, not push him up if he will not be pushed. Help any man who stumbles; if he lies down, it is a poor job to try to carry him; but if he is a worthy man, try your best to see that he gets a chance to show the worth that is in him.

“The only minds which seduce us are the minds which have destroyed themselves trying to give their life a meaning.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

The Temptation to Exist (1956)

“You can't give power away and keep it simultaneously. Except posthumously.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Cetaganda (1996)

“It's you, so I feel that a person who will understand you, a person who will find you is waiting out there. So just keep on trying your best.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

“I do not want to heap coals of fire on anyone's head, but I would like to advise those who keep the living thought of the dead hidden away in cardboard boxes, to pass on as quickly as possibly such explosive material, whose only legitimate heir is the whole world, that is to say, my neighbor.”

Pierre Schaeffer (1910–1995) French musicologist

The Old Man and His Movements (Times Press, 1964)
Literary works

“No man who believes that all is for the best in this suffering world can keep his ethical values unimpaired, since he is always having to find excuses for pain and misery.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell: A fresh look at empiricism, 1927-42 (G. Allen & Unwin, 1996), p. 217
Attributed from posthumous publications

“Remember: never walk away from failure. On the contrary, study it carefully — and imaginatively — for its hidden assets.”

Michael Korda (1933) British writer

Source: Success! (1977), p. 119

“People feel with their hearts, Ellen: and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

“Machiavelli is the complete contrary of a machiavellian, since he describes the tricks of power and “gives the whole show away.” The seducer and the politician, who live in the dialectic and have a feeling and instinct for it, try their best to keep it hidden.”

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Maurice Merleau-Ponty 24

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