Avoid Hatred and Contempt

Avoid Hatred and Contempt is a central rule of political preservation: a Prince may endure infamy and even inspire fear, but he must prevent his subjects from detesting or despising him. The rule joins material restraint, public reputation, administrative judgment, and institutional balance. Its decisive insight is that authority becomes safest when ordinary people have no compelling grievance and opponents cannot persuade them that the ruler’s removal would be a common benefit.

Definition and Political Aim

The rule begins by distinguishing fear from hatred. A Prince may be feared without being hated if he avoids invading the property or violating the women of his citizens and subjects. Punishment, including execution, is presented as politically tolerable when there is manifest cause or reasonable justification; confiscation is more dangerous because people forget a father’s death sooner than the loss of their inheritance. Property seizure also creates an inexhaustible logic of predation: once a ruler lives by rapine, reasons for taking what belongs to others are always available, whereas reasons for shedding blood are fewer and sooner exhausted.

This principle does not require a Prince to win universal affection. It sets a more exacting but more practical minimum: the mass of the population must remain content enough that only the ambition of a few threatens the state. Rapacity and interference with subjects’ property or honor are identified as the fastest routes to hatred. By abstaining from these provocations, a ruler narrows the field of danger from an entire people to isolated rivals whose ambitions can be restrained by other means.

Avoiding Contempt Through Reputation

Hatred is not the only danger. A Prince is despised when he appears fickle, frivolous, effeminate, pusillanimous, or irresolute. Against these impressions he must cultivate the visible appearance of greatness, courage, wisdom, and strength. In private dealings with subjects, decisions should be irrevocable, and the ruler’s reputation should make nobody believe that he can be overreached or cajoled. The rule therefore treats political reputation as an active instrument of government rather than as a decorative consequence of power.

This public firmness has institutional consequences. A Prince who is greatly esteemed is harder to conspire against, because conspirators cannot assume that his death will please the people. The ruler faces danger from two directions: subjects at home and foreign powers abroad. Good arms and good allies answer the external danger, while freedom from hatred and contempt helps secure the internal one. If foreign affairs are settled and the people respect their ruler, even a conspiracy becomes difficult to launch, since its authors must fear that killing the Prince would offend rather than gratify the population.

Social Balance and Institutional Safeguards

The rule applies not only to the ruler’s personal conduct but also to the arrangement of the state. Well-ordered states and wise Princes take care not to drive the nobility to desperation and to keep the common people satisfied. A ruler who neglects either group risks allowing discontent to become organized: nobles may supply leadership and resources, while the commons may provide the popular support that turns a plot into a successful movement.

France is offered as an example of institutional protection. Its Parliament and its authority serve as a mediating power between the ambition and arrogance of the nobles and the hatred that the commons, driven by fear, may feel toward them. The institution can restrain the nobles and uphold the commons without forcing the King personally to bear every resentment produced by that balancing act. From this arrangement follows a broader administrative lesson: a Prince should delegate matters that entail responsibility and reserve for himself those connected with grace and favor. He should esteem the great without making himself odious to the people.

The same contrast appears in the distinction between centralized and baronial forms of government. In a state ruled by a sole Prince and servants dependent on his favor, authority is concentrated more completely in the sovereign; such ministers are obeyed as officers, not loved as independent rulers. In a state like France, nobles of ancient descent possess their own subjects, rank, and inherited attachments. Their presence can make invasion easier because a discontented Baron may open the way to an outsider, but it also makes conquest difficult to consolidate, since those same Lords can lead renewed resistance. Hatred and contempt therefore operate through political structure as well as personal grievance.

Examples of Violence, Order, and Consent

The conduct of Cesare Borgia in Romagna illustrates the rule’s harshest and most theatrical form. After taking the Province, he found it disordered by weak Lords who plundered rather than corrected their subjects, leaving robbery, tumult, and outrage everywhere. He appointed Ramiro d’Orco, a stern and prompt governor with full powers, and the minister restored tranquillity and order in a short time. Yet unlimited authority risked becoming odious. Cesare Borgia replaced it with a civil Tribunal at the center of the Province, represented by advocates from every town.

He then used Ramiro d’Orco’s execution to separate the benefits of order from the hatred generated by its enforcement. One morning Ramiro was beheaded and displayed in the market place of Cesena beside a block and bloody axe. The spectacle both astonished and satisfied the populace: the severe minister appeared to bear responsibility for past cruelty, while Cesare Borgia presented himself as the source of restored justice. The episode demonstrates the rule’s political logic with exceptional clarity. Coercion may be used to pacify a territory, but the ruler must manage where blame settles and how the population interprets the transition from violence to order.

A contrasting example comes from Bologna. Messer Annibale Bentivoglio, Lord of Bologna, was murdered by the Canneschi, leaving only Messer Giovanni, an infant. The people immediately rose and put all the Canneschi to death because of the goodwill enjoyed by the House of the Bentivogli. When no adult member remained to govern the city, the citizens sought in Florence a supposed descendant of the family, believed until then to be the son of a smith, and entrusted him with the government until Messer Giovanni came of age. Popular attachment thus transformed the murder of a ruler into the destruction of his assassins and preserved the political authority of his house.

Administrative Conduct and Trust

Avoiding hatred and contempt also depends on choosing and managing servants. The selection of ministers is a measure of a Prince’s prudence: capable and faithful ministers show that he can recognize merit and retain loyalty, while bad ministers reveal an initial fault in the ruler’s judgment. A minister who thinks more of himself than of the Prince and pursues private ends cannot be trusted with the state.

The proper relationship is reciprocal but unequal. A minister should think only of the Prince’s interests and bring forward matters directly relevant to him. In return, the Prince should honor, enrich, and bind the minister through benefits, sharing both the honors and burdens of government. Wealth and dignity can discourage the minister from seeking advancement elsewhere, while responsibility can make him fear a change that would leave him without the ruler’s support. When both sides occupy this footing, mutual trust becomes possible; when either abandons it, one or the other will suffer.

The Prince must also resist flatterers without surrendering authority to uncontrolled opinion. The safest course is to choose discreet counselors and permit them to speak freely when asked, while retaining the right to judge and decide. He should seek their opinions on every matter, reflect on them, and then adhere firmly to his resolution. If everyone is allowed to contradict the ruler at will, respect declines; if no one may speak truth, flattery and vacillation undo him. Stable decisions therefore protect against contempt, while disciplined counsel protects against the blindness that can make a ruler hated.

Political Appearance and Consequence

The rule forms part of a larger doctrine of political appearance. A Prince should seem merciful, faithful, humane, religious, and upright, even though the preservation of the principality may sometimes force him to act against good faith, charity, humanity, or religion. The important requirement is not that every good quality be practiced without exception, but that the ruler remain able to change course when necessity demands it while preserving the public appearance of virtue.

Because most people judge by sight and by results, the ruler’s visible character and practical success shape the judgment of the multitude. A Prince who establishes and maintains authority will often have his means approved after the fact, since results make actions appear honorable. This does not erase the danger of hatred: success cannot permanently protect a ruler who violates property, honor, or the basic security of his subjects. But it explains why reputation, ceremonial conduct, decisive action, and institutional management are inseparable from the rule.

Avoid Hatred and Contempt therefore defines security as a political relationship rather than a private emotion. Fear may discipline an army, force may restore order, and appearances may support authority, but durable rule requires that the people lack both the motive to destroy the Prince and the confidence that his destruction would be welcomed. The best safeguard is not the strongest fortress or the most elaborate display of force, but a condition in which subjects remain disposed toward the ruler and conspirators cannot convert public grievances into collective action.