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The Praise of Folly 71 matters, and trusting to their own parts and learning do not fear sometimes 1‘ to grate their tender ears with smart truths’; but fools fit ’em with that they most delight in, as jeasts, laughter, abuses of other men, wanton pastimes, and the like. Again, take notice of this no contemptible blessing which Nature hath giv’n fools, that they are the only plain, honest men and such as speak truth. And what is more commendable than truth? for though that Proverb of Alcibiades in Plato attributes Truth to Drunkards and Children, yet the praise of it is particularly mine, even from the testimony of Euripides ; amongst whose other things there is extant that his honourable saying concerning us, 2‘A fool speaks foolish things’. For whatever a fool has in his heart, he both shews it in his looks and expresses it in his discourse; while the wise men’s are those two Tongues which the same Euripides mentions, whereof the one speaks truth, the other what they judge most seasonable for the occasion. These are they 1 Auriculas teneras mordaci radere vero. 2 pwpà yàp pwpòs Aéyer.
