It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.

And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved....I sum up by saying that since his being loved depends upon his subjects, while his being feared depends upon himself, [one] should build on what is his own, and not on what rests with others.

Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.

Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.

We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.