Francesco Guicciardini Quotes:

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

source: - Francesco Guicciardini (1890). “Counsels and Reflections of Francesco Guicciardini”

Topics: Friendship, Real Friends, Chance, Making Friends, New Friendship

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

Topics: Life, Hard Work, Generosity

Affairs that depend on many rarely succeed.

Topics: Succeed, Planning, Affair

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

source: - Francesco Guicciardini (1949). “Ricordi”

Topics: Heart, Men, Giving

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.

source: - Francesco Guicciardini (1949). “Ricordi”

Topics: Lying, Superstitions, Credit

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.

Topics: Future, Evil, May

Pay no heed to those who tell you that they have relinquished place and power of their own accord, and from their love of quiet. For almost always they have been brought to this retirement by their insufficiency and against their will.

source: - Francesco Guicciardini (1890). “Counsels and Reflections of Francesco Guicciardini”

Topics: Retirement, Pay, Quiet, Insufficiency

As it is our nature to be more moved by hope than fear, the example of one we see abundantly rewarded cheers and encourages us far more than the sight of many who have not been well treated disquiets us.

source: - Francesco Guicciardini (1949). “Ricordi”

Topics: Cheer, Sight, Role Models

The affairs of this world are so shifting and depend on so many accidents, that it is hard to form any judgment concerning the future; nay, we see from experience that the forecasts even of the wise almost always turn out false.

source: - Francesco Guicciardini (1890). “Counsels and Reflections of Francesco Guicciardini”

Topics: Wise, World, Shifting, Forecasts

If you attempt certain things at the right time, they are easy to accomplish - in fact, they almost get done by themselves. If you undertake them before the time is right, not only will they fail, but they will often become impossible to accomplish even when the time would have been right.

source: - Francesco Guicciardini (1965). “Maxims and Reflections (Ricordi)”, p.61, University of Pennsylvania Press

Topics: Done, Facts, Impossible

I know no man who feels deeper disgust than I do at the ambition, avarice, and profligacy of the priesthood, as well because every one of these vices is odious in itself, as because each of them separately and all of them together are utterly abhorrent in men making profession of a life dedicated to God.

source: - Francesco Guicciardini (1949). “Ricordi”

Topics: Ambition, Men, Together

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

source: - Francesco Guicciardini (1890). “Counsels and Reflections of Francesco Guicciardini”

Topics: Memories, Fleeting, Benefits

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.

Topics: Matter, Authority, Used

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

source: - Francesco Guicciardini (1890). “Counsels and Reflections of Francesco Guicciardini”

Topics: Helping, Natural, Guides

Like other men, I have sought honours and preferment, and often have obtained them beyond my wishes or hopes. Yet never have I found in them that content which I had figured beforehand in my mind. A strong reason, if we well consider it, why we should disencumber ourselves of vain desires.

Topics: Strong, Men, Mind

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.

source: - Francesco Guicciardini (1949). “Ricordi”

Topics: Ambition, Evil, Way

Be careful how you do one man a pleasure which must needs occasion equal displeasure in another. For he who is thus slighted will not forget, but will think the offence to himself the greater in that another profits by it; while he who receives the pleasure will either not remember it, or will consider the favour done him less than it really was.

source: - Francesco Guicciardini (1890). “Counsels and Reflections of Francesco Guicciardini”

Topics: Men, Thinking, Needs, Slighted, Displeasure

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.

source: - "Storia d' Italia". Book by Francesco Guicciardini, 1561.

Topics: Fall, Evil, Example

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

source: - "Storia d' Italia". Book by Francesco Guicciardini, 1561.

Topics: Fighting, Nothing To Lose, Disadvantages

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

Topics: Succeed, Affair, Reason

Ambassadors are the eye and ear of states.

source: - Francesco Guicciardini (1755). “The history of Italy: from the year 1490 to 1532”, p.40

Topics: Eye, Ears, Ambassadors, Statesmanship

Conspiracies, since they cannot be engaged in without the fellowship of others, are for that reason most perilous; for as most men are either fools or knaves, we run excessive risk in making such folk our companions.

Topics: Running, Men, Risk

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

source: - Francesco Guicciardini (1965). “Maxims and Reflections (Ricordi)”, p.54, University of Pennsylvania Press

Topics: Change, Waste, Faces

...be more guided by hope than fear.

Topics: Anticipation

Even though many people prove to be ungrateful, do not let that stop you from benefiting others-for not only is beneficence in itself a noble and almost divine quality, it may also happen that while you practice it, you will encounter someone so grateful that he will make up for all the others' ingratitude.

Topics: Grateful, Practice, People, Beneficence, Ingratitude

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.

Topics: Wind, Sea, Water, Fluctuation

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.

Topics: Eye, People, Reason

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.]

Topics: Evil, Males, Affair