Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
This chapter is possibly the most well-known of the work, and it is important because of the reasoning behind Machiavelli's famous idea that it is better to be feared than loved. [27] His justification is purely pragmatic; as he notes, "Men worry less about doing an injury to one who makes himself loved than to one who makes himself feared."
As a result, a ruler must be concerned not only with reputation, but also must be positively willing to act unscrupulously at the right times. Machiavelli believed that, for a ruler, it was better to be widely feared than to be greatly loved; a loved ruler retains authority by obligation, while a feared leader rules by fear of punishment. [44]
Machiavelli stated that, to maintain control by political force, it is safer for a prince to be feared than loved. Erasmus preferred for the prince to be loved, and strongly suggested a well-rounded education in order to govern justly and benevolently and avoid becoming a source of oppression.
Machiavelli, after all, lived at a similar inflection point in history. Florence, one of the great Renaissance republics, was being transformed into a monarchy even at the moment he was writing.
Thoughts on Machiavelli is a book by Leo Strauss first published in 1958. The book is a collection of lectures he gave at the University of Chicago in which he dissects the work of Niccolò Machiavelli. The book contains commentary on Machiavelli's The Prince and the Discourses on Livy. [1]
In Chapter 19, Machiavelli states that "it appears in governing a multitude, it is better to be humane rather than proud, merciful rather than cruel." [ 52 ] Chapter 20 concerns the story of Camillus when he was besieging the city of the Falsci.
[of] a good man". [6] Machiavelli suggests a different set of virtues than Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, apparently with less focus on beneficence and concord, and with more focus on courage. According to Machiavelli, virtù includes pride, bravery, skill, forcefulness, and an ability to harness ruthlessness when necessary. [2]
3.19 twists a line from Tacitus into something very similar to Machiavelli's famous maxim that it is better for a prince to be feared than loved. (The original made a very different point: that respect for the Emperor and a desire to conform, not fear and punishment, kept certain senators in line.)