“A Lacedaemonian was asked what had made him live healthy so long. ‘Ignorance of medicine’, he replied. And the Emperor Hadrian kept crying out as he was dying that the crowd of doctors had killed him. BA bad wrestler turned doctor. ‘Take heart’, Diogenes said to him, ‘you are right; now you will bring down those who brought you down before’. But they have this luck, according to Nicocles, that the sun shines on their successes, and the earth hides their failures. And besides, they have a very convenient way of making use of all kinds of results; for the good and the health that fortune, nature, or some other extraneous cause (of which the number is infinite) produces in us, it is the privilege of medicine to attribute to itself. All the happy results that happen to the patient who is under its care are due to it. The circumstances that have cured me and that cure a thousand others who do not call the doctors to their aid, they usurp in the case of their patients. And as for the mishaps, either they completely disavow them, by attributing the blame to the patient, for reasons so frivolous that they cannot possibly fail to find always a good enough number of them: he uncovered his arm; he heard the noise of a coach… someone opened his window; he lay down on his left side; or some troublesome thought passed through his head — in short, a word, a dream, a look, seems to them sufficient excuse to put the blame off their own shoulders. Or, if they so please, they actually make use of our getting worse, and do their business by this other means that can never fail them, which is to reward us, when the disease has become hotter by their prescriptions, with the assurance they give us that it would have become even worse without their remedies. The man whom they have cast from a chill into a quotidian fever, without them would have had a continued fever. They need not worry about doing their job badly, since the damage turns to their profit. Truly they are right to require the full confidence of the patient; it must indeed be well-intentioned and very pliable to apply itself to notions so hard to believe.” (Montaigne, tr. Frame)

“…wise men are reluctant to take charge, knowing that there are people who are still wiser and that it is they who should rule the world. Meanwhile, fools and villains leap into the breach, take charge of the world, and conduct it willfully and foolishly. This is how it happens that wise men allow idiots and criminals to destroy the world. Since the wise men are wise and growing ever wiser, what they regarded yesterday as ultimate wisdom they realize, a day later, is not wise after all. They seldom maintain a position or remain committed to anything, because wisdom keeps leading them a step further. Not so with fools. Whatever they fix their eyes on, they stick with, never letting go; should they let go, they’d have nothing. Their entire life is a strategy, a way to keep the world in their hands.” (S. Y. Agnon, Shira, tr. Zeva Shapiro)

החכמים מושכים ידיהם מהנהגת העולם, מפני שהם יודעים שיש חכמים מהם ורוצים שיתנהג העולם על ידי חכמים גמורים, בתוך כך קופצים הטפשים והרשעים ובאים ונוטלים את העולם לידיהם ומנהגים את העולם כפי זדונם וכפי טפשותם. מעתה היאך נותנים החכמים לעולם שיאבד על ידי השוטים והרשעים, אלא מתוך שהחכמים חכמים ומוסיפים חכמה, כל שנראה להם אתמול כחכמה שלימה רואים אותו היום שאינו חכמה ואינם עומדים על דעתם ואינם תוקעים עצמם לשום דבר מפני החכמה שמוליכה את החכמים ממעלה למעלה. לא כן הטפשים. כל דבר שנתנו בו עיניהם הרי הם מחזיקים בו ואינם מניחים ממנו, שאם יניחו ידיהם ממנו אין להם מה יעשו בעולם. (ש”י עגנון, שירה)

“Lying is an ugly vice, which an ancient paints in most shameful colors when he says that it is giving evidence of contempt for God, and at the same time of fear of men. It is not possible to represent more vividly the horror, the vileness, and the profligacy of it. For what can you imagine uglier than being a coward toward men and bold toward God? Since mutual understanding is brought about solely by way of words, he who breaks his word betrays human society. It is the only instrument by means of which our wills and thoughts communicate, it is the interpreter of our soul. If it fails us, we have no more hold on each other, no more knowledge of each other. If it deceives us, it breaks up all our relations and dissolves all the bonds of our society.” (Montaigne, tr. Frame)