Formerly, leaders of states practiced realism, but did not honor it… With them morality was violated, but moral notions remained intact. … The modern… - Julien Benda

If shame is cried upon him, … he will point out … that today he has to earn his living, and that it is not his fault if he is eager to support the class which takes a pleasure in his productions.

When Machiavelli advises the Prince to carry out the Machiavellian scheme of action, he invests those actions with no sort of morality or beauty. For him morality remains what it is for everyone else, and does not cease to remain so because he observes (not without melancholy) that it is incompatible with politics. … For him evil, even if it aids politics, still remains evil. The modern realists are the moralists of realism. For them, the act which makes the State strong is invested with a moral character by the fact that it does so, and this whatever the act may be. The evil which serves politics ceases to be evil and becomes good.

The modern clercs have created in so-called cultivated society a positive romanticism of harshness. The have also created a romanticism of contempt.