Machiavelli — "It is much safer to be feared than loved."
It is much safer to be feared than loved.
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
"Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by the sense of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling."
"For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often even more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are."
"Whence it may be noted that in taking a state the conqueror must arrange to commit all injuries at once and follow them up every day, so that by not repeating them he may be able to assure men and win…"
"It is better to be a good prophet than a good poet."
"No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution."
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.