Moral Essays

ingenious ways to escape at the conclusion; but they are not at all able to examine and debate things; and yet they commonly take advantage of their own inability and wish to be reputed as wits of great negotiation. Some rely more upon deceiving others, and, as they say, on pulling them over, than upon the solidity of their own actions. But Solomon says: Prudens advertit ad gressus suos, stultus divertit ad dolos original: "The prudent man attends to his steps, the fool turns to deceits". There are many differences between Cunning and Prudence; and it would be well to observe them. Because there is nothing that brings greater damage to a state than when artificial men pass for wise ones.

3. Of Marriage, and

Celibacy.

He who has a wife and children has given hostages to fortune; because they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or of wickedness. Certainly, the best works and those of greatest merit for the public have been done by unmarried men, and those without children, who have sought eternity in memory and not in having posterity; and