Wisdom of the Ancients

By Francis Bacon.

With a biographical notice by A. Spiers. Preface by B. Montagu, and notes by different writers.” “Wisdom for a man’s self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall, It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. But that which is specially to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey) are Sui Amantes sine Rivali are many times unfortunate. And whereas they have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of Fortune, whose wings they thought, by their self wisdom, to have pinioned.”

Little Brown (1884) 291 pages.