The highest standpoint from which to rule was both love and fear; I believe that was in your original post quoting him. The two in balance were considered ideal because too much of one without the other would lead to hatred, which is what leads to revolt. he whole point was to instruct a prince in how to keep control of the kingdom that was in his power.
You spend a lot of time saying potentially short things.
Being hated was a bad idea - if your subjects hated you, they would revolt, which means you had failed. One of the points that he made clear was that there was a different between fear and hate.
You are free to rant all you like about my interpretations and so on and so forth, but might I suggest that it not be here? You are persisting in being off-topic and I am loathe to contribute to this flagrant waiving of the rules.
Moving on.
Yes he's dead, so what? The book is friken epic.
It would be like taking... hm. It would be like talking about stories in videogames, but limiting yourself to games that came out before 1995.
