Machiavelli said a prince will choose to be feared over being loved, if he cannot have both.
The quotation from Machiavelli's The Prince, chapter XVII, goes like this (in Project Gutenberg public domain edition):
A question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. ... Men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.
So a prince would like to be both loved and feared, but to secure his own position he will not rely on people seeming to like him or make promises to him, but his confidence will come from his ability to demand allegiance because of his strength.