Francesco Guicciardini Quotes on Virtue
Francesco Guicciardini's Ricordi (Maxims), composed and revised across the 1520s and 30s, give Renaissance moral philosophy one of its sharpest statements of the case for particularist over generalist virtue ethics. The maxims press repeatedly the warning that the universal rules to which philosophers and moralists appeal mislead the prudent actor in the world of singular political and personal circumstance, where the configuration of persons, occasions, and chances must be read directly. The framework grounds a humanist ethics of judgment (discrezione) in which the virtues are exercised through the situated reading of the particular case rather than through the application of general principles to it.
Quotes
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Attributed to Francesco Guicciardini:
“Let no one trust so much in another's natural goodness as not to fortify himself with reason and prudence.”
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Attributed to Francesco Guicciardini:
“The world is so made that those who do not push are pushed.”
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Attributed to Francesco Guicciardini:
“Discretion in speaking is rarer than wisdom in thinking.”
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Attributed to Francesco Guicciardini:
“Whoever is content with little is rich; whoever is not, is poor though he have all.”
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“He who imitates what is evil always goes beyond the example that is set; on the contrary, he who imitates what is good always falls short.”
L'imitazione del male supera sempre l'esempio; comme per il contrario, l'imitazione del bene è sempre inferiore. -
“There is no evil in human affairs that has not some good mingled with it.”
Non è male alcuno nelle cose umane che non abbia congiunto seco qualche bene.