Francesco Guicciardini Quotes

Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends, never lose a chance to make them.

We fight to great disadvantage when we fight with those who have nothing to lose.

Waste no time with revolutions that do not remove the causes of your complaints but simply change the faces of those in charge.

The return we reap from generous actions is not always evident.

Keep your eye fixed not so much on what they [people] ought in reason to do, as on what they are likely to do based on their disposition and habits.

By numberless examples it will evidently appear that human affairs are as subject to change and fluctuation as the waters of the sea agitated by the winds.

There is nothing so fleeting as the memory of benefits received.

To give vent now and then to his feelings, whether of pleasure or discontent, is a great ease to a man's heart.

Ambition is not in itself an evil; nor is he to be condemned whose spirit prompts him to seek fame by worthy and honourable ways.

Ambassadors are the eye and ear of states.

...be more guided by hope than fear.

Affairs that depend on many rarely succeed.

To relinquish a present good through apprehension of a future evil is in most instances unwise ... from a fear which may afterwards turn out groundless, you lost the good that lay within your grasp.

Let no one trust so entirely to natural prudence as to persuade himself that it will suffice to guide him without help from experience.

There is no evil in human affairs that has not some good mingled with it. [It., Non e male alcuno nelle cose umane che non abbia congiunto seco qualche bene.]

He is less likely to be mistaken who looks forward to a change in the affairs of the world than he who regards them as firm and stable.

Experience has always shown, and reason also, that affairs which depend on many seldom succeed.

It is a great matter to be in authority over others; for authority, if it be rightly used, will make you feared beyond your actual resources.

He who imitates what is evil always goes beyond the example that is set; on the contrary, he who imitates what is good always falls short.

How much luckier than all the rest of mankind are the astrologers who, if they tell one truth among a hundred lies, obtain so much credit that even their lies are believed.

To relinquish a present good through apprehension of a future evil is in most instances unwise ... from a fear which may afterwards turn out groundless you lost the good that lay within your grasp.

He who imitates what is evil always goes beyond the example that is set on the contrary he who imitates what is good always falls short.

Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends never lose a chance to make them.

It is our nature to be more moved by hope than fear.