
“To speak well of a base man is much the same as speaking ill of a good man.”
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
No. 62, st. 3.
Source: A Shropshire Lad (1896)
“To speak well of a base man is much the same as speaking ill of a good man.”
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)
Source: "Encountering Sorrow" (trans. David Hawkes), Line 127
“Ill repute is a good thing and much the same as pain.”
§ 5
From Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius
“As nought good endures beneath the skies,
So ill endures no more.”
Come cosa buona non si trova
Che duri sempre, così ancor né ria.
Canto XXXVII, stanza 7 (tr. W. S. Rose)
Orlando Furioso (1532)
“354. He that hath no ill fortune is troubled with good.”
Jacula Prudentum (1651)
“Such are the vicissitudes of our mortal lot: misfortune is born of prosperity, and good fortune of ill-luck.”
Habet has vices conditio mortalium, ut adversa ex secundis, ex adversis secunda nascantur.
V.
Panegyricus
“To do good is noble. To tell others to do good is even nobler and much less trouble.”
“An ill wind that blows no man to good.”
Part II, chapter 9.
Proverbs (1546)