Francesco Guicciardini
Francesco Guicciardini
Francesco Guicciardiniwas an Italian historian and statesman. A friend and critic of Niccolò Machiavelli, he is considered one of the major political writers of the Italian Renaissance. In his masterpiece, The History of Italy, Guicciardini paved the way for a new style in historiography with his use of government sources to support arguments and the realistic analysis of the people and events of his time...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth6 March 1483
CountryItaly
Francesco Guicciardini quotes about
Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends, never lose a chance to make them.
Waste no time with revolutions that do not remove the causes of your complaints but simply change the faces of those in charge.
Affairs that depend on many rarely succeed.
To give vent now and then to his feelings, whether of pleasure or discontent, is a great ease to a man's heart.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Let no one trust so entirely to natural prudence as to persuade himself that it will suffice to guide him without help from experience.
Experience has always shown, and reason also, that affairs which depend on many seldom succeed.
We fight to great disadvantage when we fight with those who have nothing to lose.
...be more guided by hope than fear.