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.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Machiavelli
"Wise men say, and not without reason, that whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times."
"Hence it comes that all armed prophets have conquered and unarmed ones have failed."
"Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great."
"A man who is used to acting with caution, when circumstances require him to act with impetuosity, cannot change his nature."
"For where the very safety of the country depends upon the resolution to be taken, no considerations whatever of justice or injustice, humanity or cruelty, nor of glory or disgrace, should be allowed t…"
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.