Niccolò Machiavelli

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both. I am constantly misquoted on this. I said feared is safer than loved because love is maintained by chains of obligation which men break when it serves their interest, while fear is maintained by the dread of punishment which never fails.

Caesar is the example I give when I wish to show a prince who was both loved and feared, and who combined military genius with political intelligence — and who was still destroyed. His error was not military. It was constitutional: he made himself too obviously a king in a city that prided itself on not being a kingdom. The senators who killed him were not...

Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws must start by assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it. I am not a pessimist. I am a Republican trying to design institutions that work even when the people running them are bad.

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both. Men are so simple and yield so readily to present needs that he who wishes to deceive will never fail in finding willing victims.

The end justifies the means. A prince must imitate the fox and the lion — the fox to detect traps, and the lion to overawe the wolves. He who relies only on the lion does not understand.

Never was anything great achieved without danger. Fortune is a woman — she favours the bold who beat her down. He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done sooner effects his ruin.

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both. Men offend one they love more readily than one they fear. Love is held by a chain of obligation, which, because men are wretched creatures, is broken whenever it serves their advantage to do so. Fear is maintained by a dread of punishment that never fails. Nevertheless, the prince must avoid...

Fortune is a woman, and it is necessary, if you wish to master her, to conquer her by force. She is more easily conquered by the impetuous than by those who proceed coldly and deliberately. I spent fourteen years in the service of the Florentine republic. When the Medici returned and the republic fell, I was arrested, tortured, and exiled to my farm. There...

It is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting.

A prince must learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge or not use it according to necessity.

Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear. This is the first truth of politics. The second truth is that a prince who relies only on love is ruined when those who love him have nothing to gain from their love. The third truth is that a prince who relies only on fear becomes a tyrant.

The ends justify the means. I never wrote this sentence. What I wrote was that a prince who wins is always judged to have used honourable means. The observation is cynical, but it is an observation about how people actually judge outcomes — not a recommendation for how to act.