Who said "it is far safer to be feared than loved"?

Niccolò Machiavelli said, “It is far safer to be feared than loved,” in his political treatise The Prince. The fuller sentence qualifies the idea: a ruler should ideally be both loved and feared, but if both qualities cannot be combined, fear is safer—provided it does not turn into hatred.

Machiavelli wrote The Prince around 1513, while serving as a Florentine diplomat, though it was not printed until 1532, five years after his death. The quotation appears in Chapter 17, where he discusses whether rulers should show mercy or cruelty. He argues that people are more likely to keep obligations when fear of punishment reinforces them, whereas affection can weaken during hardship.

A common mix-up is treating the line as a recommendation to rule through indiscriminate terror. Machiavelli specifically warns that a prince must avoid being hated, especially by protecting subjects’ property and families. The quotation also comes from an English translation of the original Italian, so wording varies slightly between editions. Machiavelli is often associated with ruthless politics, but The Prince is a broader study of power, leadership, military strength, reputation, and political survival.