Francesco Guicciardini Quotes

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

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

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.

Ambassadors are the eye and ear of states.

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.

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.

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

Be more guided by hope than fear.

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.

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.