Is it better to be loved or feared?

Is better to be feared or loved? It depends by what you mean by loved. If you mean loved like you love a teacher who gives easy A's then a leader would be more successful being feared because eventually the teacher realize what he/she or doing is wrong. The teacher will become a more realistic grader and some students will be unsuccessful academically. The students will resent the teacher and if this situation occurred with a leader and his/her followers then the followers would rebel. But if one means love, the way one loves their parents that is a whole different story. A ruler would want to be loved like a parent because your subjects would love you and respect you. For example if your parents punish you for something you did wrong you still love them. And to achieve this a ruler must look after their subjects like children. Always watching out for them, providing them the necessities of life and punishing them when they mess up. This is probably one of the only ways a ruler can be loved with out their own downfall.