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 GuicciardiniWaste no time with revolutions that do not remove the causes of your complaints but simply change the faces of those in charge.
Francesco GuicciardiniWe fight to great disadvantage when we fight with those who have nothing to lose.
Francesco GuicciardiniI 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