Francesco Guicciardini Quotes

Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you.

We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us now commit it to life.

I believe in the Golden Rule. I believe in practicing it.

May I do to others as I would that they should do unto me.

Treat the world the way you want to be treated.

No man doth think others will be better to him than he is to them.

I wonder why it is the man who pleads for mercy never gives it.

I grew up with the thought that I wanted to treat people the way I'd like to be treated, and I think if you do that, it's pretty hard to go wrong.

A man is most accurately judged by how he treats those who are not in a position either to retaliate or to reciprocate.

In matters of equity between man and man, our Saviour has taught us to put my neighbor in place of myself, and myself in place of my neighbor.

We understand the concept of equality, that we all want to be equal. But I think this is absolutely not true. I don't think anybody really wants to be equal. Everybody wants to be more equal.

It’s much easier to be cruel than one might think.

If a man will be righteous and equal, let him see, with his neighbour's eyes, in his own case; and with his own eyes, in his neighbour's case.

Everybody knows that if they're happy then usually the people around them are happy, or that people around them happy make them a little happier; that's a proved thing, like "I give to you and you give to me"; they all know that but they haven't thought about it to the point of every action that they do. That's what it is with every action that you do, there's a reaction to it, and if you want a good reaction then you do a good action, and if you want a bad one, then you punch somebody.

You could not claim for yourself that which you were not prepared to grant others.

I think that's a connection that you can only hope for. It's not something that you can make because it needs someone else.

The need to speak the truth and even to seek it for oneself is only conceivable in so far as the individual thinks and acts as one of a society, and not of any society (for it is just the constraining relations between superior and inferior that often drive the latter to prevarication) but of a society founded on reciprocity and mutual respect, and therefore on cooperation.

A psychologist once asked a group of college students to jot down, in thirty seconds, the initials of the people they disliked. Some of the students taking the test could think of only one person. Others listed as many as fourteen. The interesting fact that came out of this bit of research was this: Those who disliked the largest number were themselves the most widely disliked. When we find ourselves continually disliking others, we ought to bring ourselves up short and ask ourselves the question: "What is wrong with me."

The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I think it's a good rule for politics, too.

It is better to arouse envy than pity.

No one should think or say anything of another which he would not wish thought or said of himself.

I think it is a good exercise to ask oneself, "How would I have wanted to be treated?"

While craving justice for ourselves, it is never wise to be unjust to others.

I think the reason that a lot of people have to have a lot of people around is just about being smart and knowing what you want to talk about. I want people to know who I am. Respect is a huge thing - especially in my family. ... If you don't respect people, people aren't going to respect you back. It's just about yourself, you respecting others, and hopefully everyone else will follow that and respect you, as well.

In every case, we ought to act that part towards another, which we would judge to be right in him to act toward us, if we were in his circumstances and he in ours; or more generally - What we approve in others, that we ought to practise in like circumstances, what we condemn in others we ought not to do.