One who imitates what is bad always goes beyond his model; while one who imitates what is good always comes up short of it.
Category Archive: Francesco Guicciardini
Let no one trust so entirely to natural prudence as to persuade himself that it will suffice to guide him without help from experience.
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.
The return we reap from generous actions is not always evident.
Few revolutions succeed, and when they do, you often discover they did not gain what you hoped for, and you condemn yourself to perpetual fear, as the parties you defeated may always regain power and work for your ruin.
Waste no time with revolutions that do not remove the causes of your complaints but simply change the faces of those in charge.
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.
Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends, never lose a chance to make them.
Affairs that depend on many rarely succeed.
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.