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Men hesitate less to injure a man who makes himself loved than to injure one who makes himself feared for their love is held by a chain of obligation which because of men's wickedness is broken on every occasion for the sake of selfish profit but their fear is secured by a dread of punishment.

Men hesitate less to injure a man who makes himself loved than to injure one who makes himself feared for their love is held by a chain of obligation which because of men's wickedness is broken on every occasion for the sake of selfish profit but their fear is secured by a dread of punishment.
Niccolo Machiavelli

Approximate author period: c. 1498 AD · medieval

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Niccolo Machiavelli
Attribution: unknown
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1498 AD · medieval
Approximate period for recorded attribution label Niccolo Machiavelli: recorded author lifetime 1469–1527. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1399 (checked 2026-10-08). The existing author record is niccolo-machiavelli; no author identity is bound and no quotation composition date or attribution is independently verified.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 402199; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.