And in examining their life and deeds it will be seen that they owed nothing to fortune but the opportunity which gave them matter to be shaped into … - Niccolò Machiavelli

When Machiavelli came to the end of his life, he had a vision shortly before giving up the ghost. He saw a small company of poor scoundrels, all in rags, ill-favoured, famished, and, in short, in as bad plight as possible. He was told that these were the inhabitants of paradise, of whom it is written, Beati pauperes, quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum. After they withdrew, innumerable serious and majestic personages appeared, who seemed to be sitting in a senate-house and dealing with the most important affairs of state. Among them he saw Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Plutarch, Tacitus, and others of similar character; but he was told at the same time that those venerable personages, notwithstanding their appearance, were the damned, and the souls rejected by heaven, for Sapientia huius saeculi, inimica est Dei.. After this, he was asked to which of the groups he would choose to belong; he answered that he would much rather be in Hell with those great geniuses, to converse with them about affairs of state, than be condemned to the company of the verminous scoundrels that he had first been shown.

Nothing consumes itself so much as generosity, because while you practise it you’re losing the wherewithal to go on practising it.

And there is nothing wastes so rapidly as liberality, for even whilst you exercise it you lose the power to do so, and so become either poor or despised, or else - in avoiding poverty - rapacious and hated. And a leader should guard himself, above all things, against being despised and hated; and liberality leads you to both. Therefore it is wiser to have a reputation for austerity which brings reproach without hatred, than to be compelled through seeking a reputation for liberality to incur a name for rapacity which begets reproach with hatred.