Lipsius's Admonitions and Examples on Politics

In the first three ciceronian books, lipsius piles up quotations that encourage the ruler to strive for more excellence. It's only in the fourth book that we learn about the dark side of this wisdom, which lipsius calls mixed prudence. He follows machiavelli in observing that strict morality is naive in the face of human evils. Lipsius also doesn't believe in fortune at all, strictly speaking.