Who fears not to do ill fears the name, And free from conscience, is a slave to fame.
Search not to find things too deeply hid; Nor try to know things whose knowledge is forbid.
Books should to one of these fours ends conduce, for wisdom, piety, delight, or use.
Youth, what man's age is like to be, doth show; We may our ends by our beginnings know.
Though with those streams he no resemblance hold, Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold; His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore, Search not his bottom, but survey his shore.
The man who first abused his fellows with swear-words instead of bashing their brains out with a club should be counted among those who laid the foundations of civilization.