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
"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…"
"The common people are always caught by appearances and by the outcome of a thing; and in the world there are only the common people."
"The wise man does at once what the fool does finally."
"For there is no other way of guarding oneself from flatterers than by letting men understand that to tell you the truth will not offend you."
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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.