The Machiavelli Devotional: Love and Fear

"From this springs a dispute: whether it is better to be loved than feared or the reverse. It is answered that one would want to be both: but, because it is difficult to force them together whenever one has to do without either of the two, it is much more secure to be feared than loved. Because this can generally be said about men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, dissimulators, apt to flee peril, covetous of gain; and while you do them good, they are all yours, they offer you their blood, their things, their life, their children, as I said above, when need is far off; but when it draws near to you, they revolt. And that prince who bases himself entirely on their words, finding himself naked of other preparations, falls to ruin."
- Niccolo Machiavelli in Il Principe XVII: De crudelitate et pietate, et an sit melius amari quam timeri, vel e contra

Note: the Machiavelli Devotional is a column that may become regular. It will highlight the values, virtues, and reasoning of this world, which are so sharply at odds with the New Testament Law of Love. Here, the worldly author correctly understands the weakness of human commitments, but counsels action toward the ends of security and power, not valuing love or Biblical virtue for its own sake.