“As when you melons in the market buy.
You’ll cut a hundred, and, amongst the pile,
’Tis hard if you two good ones shall espy.
So, in our day, of all the tongues we deem,
From outward showing, free from every guile,
But two per cent, are really what they seem.”

— Pietro Nelli

Satire, II., IX. — ""A Benedetto Barbarigo.""
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 277.

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Pietro Nelli5

Italian painter 1672–1740

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