Part

  1 Pref  |          to carry yourself to all men a man of all hours. Wherefore
  2 Pref  |    benefit from it than from some men’s crabbish and specious
  3 Pref  |        For my own part, let other men judge of what I have written;
  4 Pref  |         was ever permitted to all men’s wits, to make their smart,
  5 Pref  |     admire the tender ears of the men of this age, that can away
  6 Pref  |        that so taxes the lives of men, without naming anyone in
  7 Pref  |         he that spares no sort of men cannot be said to be angry
  8 Pref  |  sharpness, not sparing sometimes men’s very name. But I, besides
  9 Praise|           recreates both gods and men, even this is a sufficient
 10 Praise|         who nowadays boozle young men’s heads with certain empty
 11 Praise|           of the gods and valiant men. And the like encomium shall
 12 Praise|   practice of our nobles and wise men who, throwing away all shame,
 13 Praise|           I say, or negligence of men who, notwithstanding they
 14 Praise|      appearance and title of wise men and walk like asses in scarlet
 15 Praise|          ungrateful generation of men that, when they are wholly
 16 Praise|           to the world to be wise men and Thales, we’ll even call
 17 Praise|            the father of gods and men, at whose single beck, as
 18 Praise|          brought both to gods and men. For, if it was not unwisely
 19 Praise|           is to be a god, to help men; and if they are deservedly
 20 Praise|          bestow all things on all men. For first, what is more
 21 Praise|        father of gods and king of men at whose very beck the heavens
 22 Praise|           of wedlock, if, as wise men should, he did but first
 23 Praise| reputation everywhere, how do all men favor it, study to advance
 24 Praise|        malicious; and that of old men, as he has it in another
 25 Praise|   prattling. Add to this that old men are more eagerly delighted
 26 Praise|         and they, again, with old men. “Like to like,” quoted
 27 Praise|          part of his life. And if men would but refrain from all
 28 Praise|           is wont to render other men wiser, makes them the greater
 29 Praise|           are more fortunate than men. As first their beauty,
 30 Praise|       recommendation have they to men than this folly? For what
 31 Praise|        invented by the seven wise men but myself, and that too
 32 Praise|       joined. I speak of ordinary men, of whom none are born without
 33 Praise|        has imprinted that evil in men, especially such as have
 34 Praise|            what use of those wise men, I pray, that are so exhausted
 35 Praise|         judged “the wisest of all men living,” be witness; who
 36 Praise|      reckoned among the number of men, there being nothing but
 37 Praise|     government. For these kind of men that are so given up to
 38 Praise|           there at all done among men that is not full of folly,
 39 Praise|          pens of so many eloquent men have extolled to the skies.
 40 Praise|           speak of arts, what set men’s wits on work to invent
 41 Praise|          have the most foolish of men thought to purchase themselves
 42 Praise|         reap the benefit of other men’s madness.~And now, having
 43 Praise|           he’s the poorest of all men. And then for his mind so
 44 Praise|           kind of comedy, wherein men walk up and down in one
 45 Praise|        become of the world if all men should be wise; to wit it
 46 Praise|         hopes of good and sweeten men up in their greatest misfortunes
 47 Praise|        portion, is so common that men almost expect to be commended
 48 Praise|          is now professed by most men, is nothing but a branch
 49 Praise|      though I say it myself, most men laugh at as the ass of philosophy;
 50 Praise|            while, imitating those men of valor, he so eagerly
 51 Praise|     exceed them. And again, among men he gives the precedency
 52 Praise|           who not only called all men “wretched and full of calamity,”
 53 Praise|        nature. As therefore among men they are least happy that
 54 Praise|           that when they are born men, they should yet so far
 55 Praise|           than that generation of men we commonly call fools,
 56 Praise|         towards another, that all men indifferently admit them
 57 Praise|          and not without cause do men have them in such esteem.
 58 Praise|        before their crabbish wise men, whom yet they keep about
 59 Praise|       others, for that these wise men speak to princes about nothing
 60 Praise|         laughter, abuses of other men, wanton pastimes, and the
 61 Praise|        are the only plain, honest men and such as speak truth.
 62 Praise|         discourse; while the wise men’s are those two tongues
 63 Praise|      reason they avoid those wise men, because they fear lest
 64 Praise|       delighted with this kind of men, as being more propense
 65 Praise|     condition of any of your wise men with that of this fool.
 66 Praise|         their snakes and put into men’s breasts either the desire
 67 Praise|          a certain fifth essence; men so bewitched with this present
 68 Praise|      forsooth, they be thought no men of their words. Again what
 69 Praise|       doubt but that that kind of men are wholly ours who love
 70 Praise|        wise, that on the contrary men rather pray against anything
 71 Praise|          other particular kind of men, as if this self-love had
 72 Praise|      everywhere and rendered most men superabundantly happy? As
 73 Praise|            as I said before, most men are so subject to folly.
 74 Praise|            not only in particular men but even in every nation,
 75 Praise|     themselves the only well-bred men. The Parisians, excluding
 76 Praise|       Unless, perhaps you’ll say, men had better converse with
 77 Praise|         their learning, makes old men frolic, and, under the color
 78 Praise|       that place the happiness of men in things themselves, since
 79 Praise|           dearth there is of wise men, if yet any one be to be
 80 Praise|         bestows not empire on all men. Mars oftentimes favors
 81 Praise|      worship them: just like some men, who are so hard to please,
 82 Praise|           a goat, or sow when all men pay me that worship everywhere
 83 Praise|           as ’tis generally done, men embrace me in their minds,
 84 Praise|           land where there are no men. Nor am I yet so foolish
 85 Praise|          and as many as there are men, everyone bearing my lively
 86 Praise|          little into the lives of men, and it will easily appear
 87 Praise|          down upon the actions of men. Nor is there anything that
 88 Praise|      turmoils himself about other men’s business and neglects
 89 Praise|         by courting old childless men with presents; and others
 90 Praise|      carry the reputation of wise men and hunt after that golden
 91 Praise|      first place, a generation of men than whom nothing would
 92 Praise|         the most excellent of all men, so greatly do they please
 93 Praise|        the censure of so few wise men be against so great a cloud
 94 Praise|          wiser that put out other men’s works for their own, and
 95 Praise|           a triumph. And now wise men laugh at these things as
 96 Praise|           While yet those learned men, though they laugh their
 97 Praise|         sophists, a generation of men more prattling than an echo
 98 Praise|       themselves as the only wise men and all others as shadows.
 99 Praise|      unsavory plant, as a kind of men that are supercilious beyond
100 Praise|          crime to kill a thousand men than to set a stitch on
101 Praise|  themselves as somewhat more than men as often as they are devoutly
102 Praise|    farthest from religion, and no men swarm thicker in all places
103 Praise|     several ways. For whereas all men detest them to that height,
104 Praise|         but each different order, men otherwise professing apostolical
105 Praise|           and petty traditions of men that they think one heaven
106 Praise|     because they are privy to all men’s secrets by means of confessions,
107 Praise|           them. But these learned men think their preamble, for
108 Praise|         though he is but one, all men’s eyes are upon him, and
109 Praise|           that the vices of other men are not alike felt, nor
110 Praise|           and opens a gap to many men’s ruin. Besides, that the
111 Praise|         yet in this only thing no men more modest, in that they
112 Praise|         wide to the succor of all men? that is, to instruct, exhort,
113 Praise|            that vast multitude of men that overcharge the Roman
114 Praise|           that scarce any kind of men live more voluptuously or
115 Praise|          sight of which they sink men’s souls beneath the bottom
116 Praise|         rather befits beasts than men, so outrageous that the
117 Praise|    pestilent that it corrupts all men’s manners, so unjust that
118 Praise|          executed by the worst of men, so wicked that it has no
119 Praise|         acting the parts of young men, neither troubled at their
120 Praise|       prudently lay that on other men’s shoulders and shift it
121 Praise|         from one to the other, as men toss a ball from hand to
122 Praise|     always an enemy to those wise men, and on the contrary so
123 Praise|         others hit properly, wise men “born in the fourth month;”
124 Praise|         thrown.” But wisdom makes men bashful, which is the reason
125 Praise|        the reason that those wise men have so little to do, unless
126 Praise|          what is it these kind of men have, may more justly be
127 Praise|        sad scruples of those wise men touching rapine and usury.
128 Praise|          their doors against wise men and admit anything sooner.
129 Praise|           having lived long among men became at last a master
130 Praise|        not seem to comprehend all men, unless it be some few whom
131 Praise|          and leaving folly to all men else, and again, “Let not
132 Praise|        fool himself, supposes all men to be fools like him.” And
133 Praise|          the same thing, and most men wondered what ailed the
134 Praise|           says he, “is wiser than men.” Though yet I must confess
135 Praise|         the uncertain judgment of men; of which kind is, that “
136 Praise|           and condemns those wise men and such as put confidence
137 Praise|          opposes to the word wise men. To this appertains that
138 Praise|         than woe to you, you wise men?), but seems chiefly delighted
139 Praise|           pardoned, those of wise men never. Whence it is that
140 Praise|     consider first that boys, old men, women, and fools are more
141 Praise|           yet we see such kind of men foretell things to come,
142 Praise|        like often happens to sick men a little before their death,
143 Praise|         near it that a great many men would judge it no better,
144 Praise|         manner the common sort of men chiefly admire those things
145 Praise|          lies its force. But holy men, because the whole bent
146 Praise|           that some of these holy men have by mistake drunk oil
147 Praise|      pride, envy; with which holy men are at irreconcilable enmity,
148 Praise|         God, not them—but as good men or women and in whom shines
149 Praise|      represented by it, which all men, vanquishing, abolishing,
150 Praise|     better agrees with those holy men than the common people:
151 Praise|     forasmuch as the life of holy men is nothing but a continued
152 Praise|           not after the manner of men but make a kind of sound