Quote

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.

Francesco Guicciardini

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Francesco Guicciardini
Age: 57 †
Born: 1483
Born: March 6
Died: 1540
Died: May 22
Diplomat
Historian
Philosopher
Politician
Writer
Florence
Tuscany
François Guichardin
Guicciardini
Ought
Eye
Keep
Disposition
Reason
Habits
Much
Fixed
People
Likely
Based
Habit

More quotes by Francesco Guicciardini

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Experience has always shown, and reason also, that affairs which depend on many seldom succeed.
Francesco Guicciardini
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...be more guided by hope than fear.
Francesco Guicciardini
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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.
Francesco Guicciardini
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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.
Francesco Guicciardini
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Affairs that depend on many rarely succeed.
Francesco Guicciardini
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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.
Francesco Guicciardini
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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.
Francesco Guicciardini
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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.
Francesco Guicciardini
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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.
Francesco Guicciardini
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To give vent now and then to his feelings, whether of pleasure or discontent, is a great ease to a man's heart.
Francesco Guicciardini
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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.
Francesco Guicciardini
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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.]
Francesco Guicciardini
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Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends, never lose a chance to make them.
Francesco Guicciardini
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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.
Francesco Guicciardini
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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.
Francesco Guicciardini
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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.
Francesco Guicciardini
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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.
Francesco Guicciardini
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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.
Francesco Guicciardini