Machiavelli — "It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."
It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.
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More from Machiavelli
"A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise."
"The people, when they have a good leader, are not afraid to fight; and if they are not afraid, they are strong."
"The nature of men is such that they are much beholden to those who do them good, and they are much offended by those who do them evil."
"He who builds on the people, builds on mud."
"For where the fear of God is wanting, it is inevitable that the kingdom will come to ruin, or that it will be sustained by the fear of a prince, which will supply the want of religion."
About Machiavelli (1469-1527)
Florentine diplomat and political theorist whose The Prince (written 1513) became the founding text of political realism and gave us the adjective 'Machiavellian.' Closely associated with Francesco Guicciardini (fellow Florentine political analyst and historian). For an intellectual contrast, see Erasmus of Rotterdam, Dutch humanist and The Education of a Christian Prince author (1516) — Erasmus's princely-instruction manual was published three years after Machiavelli's, for the same European audience, and is the explicit Christian-virtue alternative to Machiavellian power-realism. The cleanest 'realism vs idealism' founding pairing in modern political theory.