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Quotation from The Art of War by Niccolo Machiavelli
“How much better thei should have doen (be it spoken without displeasure to any man) to have sought to been like the antiquitie in thinges strong, and sharpe, not in the delicate and softe: and in those that thei did in the Sunne, not in the shadowe”
The Art of War, Book I, trans. Peter Whitehorne (1560)
In the shade of Cosimo's garden, Fabrizio criticises princes who imitate the ancients only in their pleasures.
Citation: "How much better thei should have doen (be it spoken without displeasure to any man) to have sought to been like the antiquitie in thinges strong, and sharpe, not in the delicate and softe: and in those that thei did in the Sunne, not in the shadowe" — Niccolo Machiavelli, The Art of War, Book I, trans. Peter Whitehorne (1560). (id the-art-of-war-machiavelli-q3)
Portrait: Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli, Santi di Tito, Public domain.
