Although Machiavelli's treatise, The Prince was written during the renaissance and in a time of uncertainty, many of his ideas are debated over today and in fact still have a great impact on modern political and everyday life. An area of controversy today is in the reliability of his advice concerning love and fear, cruelty and mercifulness. His views reflect upon the idea of fear being politically better to have than love and the thought of cruelty instilled in subjects being superior to being considered merciful. A thorough investigation of The Prince proves his analysis valid.

To be more concerned with being loved than feared only leads to a prince's ruin and demise. Machiavelli expresses this view in the following excerpt, "And men are less hesitant about harming someone who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared because love is held together by a chain of...