"One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves."

"I conclude, then, that so long as Fortune varies and men stand still, they will prosper while they suit the times, and fail when they do not. But I do feel this: that it is better to be rash than timid, for Fortune is a woman, and the man who wants to hold her down must beat and bully her. We see that she yields more often to men of this stripe than to those who come coldly toward her."

-wise words said by such a wise man - Niccolò Machiavelli, a key figure in realist political theory, crucial to European statecraft during the Reneissance.