[The Essays of Montaigne by Michel de Montaigne]@TWC D-Link bookThe Essays of Montaigne CHAPTER LVII 6/16
We find the younger Marius one while a son of Mars and another a son of Venus.
Pope Boniface VIII.
entered, it is said, into his Papacy like a fox, behaved himself in it like a lion, and died like a dog; and who could believe it to be the same Nero, the perfect image of all cruelty, who, having the sentence of a condemned man brought to him to sign, as was the custom, cried out, "O that I had never been taught to write!" so much it went to his heart to condemn a man to death.
All story is full of such examples, and every man is able to produce so many to himself, or out of his own practice or observation, that I sometimes wonder to see men of understanding give themselves the trouble of sorting these pieces, considering that irresolution appears to me to be the most common and manifest vice of our nature witness the famous verse of the player Publius: "Malum consilium est, quod mutari non potest." ["'Tis evil counsel that will admit no change." -- Pub.
Mim., ex Aul.Gell., xvii.
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