The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli

by Niccolo Machiavelli:  To the great Lorenzo Di Piero De Medici

Chapter 18
....whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? 

It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person it is much safer to be feared than loved, when only one is possible.  

Love is preserved by the link of gratefulness which, owing to the weak nature of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a fear of punishment which never fails.

Nevertheless a prince ought to encourage fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred.

Returning to the question of being feared or loved, I come to the conclusion that, because men love according to their own will and fear according to the will of the prince, a wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control and not in the control of others. He must try however to avoid hatred.

CHAPTER 19 
THAT ONE SHOULD AVOID BEING HATED AND DESPISED

But Pertinax was created emperor against the wishes of the soldiers. They were accustomed to live beyond the rules under Commodus, and could not bear the honest life to which Pertinax wished to reduce them. Thus having given a cause for hatred, to which hatred there was added a lack of respect for him because he was old, he was destroyed at the very beginning of his administration. It should be noted here that hatred is acquired as much by good works as by bad ones. 

Is this an epitaph to Jeremy Corbyn?

CHAPTER 25 
WHAT ROLE FORTUNE PLAYS IN HUMAN AFFAIRS AND HOW TO RESIST HER

I compare fortune to one of those great rivers, which when in flood covers the plains, sweeping away trees and buildings, bearing away the soil from place to place. Everything flies before it, all yield to its violence, without being able in any way to resist it. But although its nature is like that, it does not follow therefore that people, when the weather becomes fine, should not make preparations, both with canals and defences, so that in the future the rising waters are directed away, and their force is not so unrestrained and dangerous. It is the same with fortune, who shows her power where courage has not made preparations to resist her. She turns her forces where she knows that walls have not been raised to constrain her.