Veritas proprium hominis.--Truth is man's proper good, and the only
immortal thing was given to our mortality to use. No good Christian
or ethnic, if he be honest, can miss it; no statesman or patriot
should. For without truth all the actions of mankind are craft,
malice, or what you will, rather than wisdom. Homer says he hates
him worse than hell-mouth that utters one thing with his tongue and
keeps another in his breast. Which high expression was grounded on
divine reason; for a lying mouth is a stinking pit, and murders with
the contagion it venteth. Beside, nothing is lasting that is
feigned; it will have another face than it had, ere long. {41} As
Euripides saith, "No lie ever grows old."
Nullum vitium sine patrocinio.--It is strange there should be no
vice without its patronage, that when we have no other excuse we
will say, we love it, we cannot forsake it. As if that made it not
more a fault. We cannot, because we think we cannot, and we love it
because we will defend it. We will rather excuse it than be rid of
it. That we cannot is pretended; but that we will not is the true
reason.
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