It Is Not Enough To Acquire Wisdom,

I Am Not Ashamed To Confess That I Am Ignorant Of What I Do Not Know.

Now In Regard To Trades And Other Means Of Livelihood, Which Ones Are To Be Considered Becoming To A Gentleman And Which Ones Are Vulgar, We Have Been Taught, In General, As Follows. First, Those Means Of Livelihood Are Rejected As Undesirable Which Incur People's Ill-will, As Those Of Tax-gatherers And Usurers. Unbecoming To A Gentleman, Too, And Vulgar Are The Means Of Livelihood Of All Hired Workmen Whom We Pay For Mere Manual Labour, Not For Artistic Skill; For In Their Case The Very Wage They Receive Is A Pledge Of Their Slavery.

No Sensible Man (among The Many Things That Have Been Written On This Kind) Ever Imputed Inconsistency To Another For Changing His Mind. [lat., Nemo Doctus Unquam (multa Autem De Hoc Genere Scripta Sunt) Mutationem Consili Inconstantiam Dixit Esse.]

It Is Easy To Distinguish Between The Joking That Reflects Good Breeding And That Which Is Coarse-the One, If Aired At An Apposite Moment Of Mental Relaxation, Is Becoming In The Most Serious Of Men, Whereas The Other Is Unworthy Of Any Free Person, If The Content Is Indecent Or The Expression Obscene.

Time Puts An End To Speculation In Opinions, And Confirms The Laws Of Nature.