Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends, never lose a chance to make them.
From Francesco Guicciardini
Waste no time with revolutions that do not remove the causes of your complaints but simply change the faces of those in charge.
One who imitates what is bad always goes beyond his model; while one who imitates what is good always comes up short of it.
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.
The return we reap from generous actions is not always evident.
Affairs that depend on many rarely succeed.
Let no one trust so entirely to natural prudence as to persuade himself that it will suffice to guide him without help from experience.
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.
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.
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.
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