t is better to be loved than feared, but it is safer to be feared than loved.

Terribly sorry, but IMO this is an untenable proposition. People who fear you will destroy you -- if they fear you too much to do so explicitly they will do so covertly.

People who loveyou may cause you great pain from folly or oversight or misinterpretation, but they won't seek to destroy you.

At best the notion that it is safer to be feared than loved, in my opinion, qualifies as an irrational dictum.

A