For nonprofit and educational uses only. Send comments and corrections to the Publisher . We may so seize on vertue, that if we embrace it with an over greedy and violent desire, it may become vitious. Those who say, 'There is never excesse in vertue, because it is no longer vertue if any excesse be in it,' doe but jest at words. A wise man mad, just unjust, may I name, More than is meet, een vertue if he claime.
Philosophy is a subtile consideration.
A man may love vertue too much, and excessively demeane himselfe in a good action. Be not wiser than you should, and be soberly wise. I love temperate and indifferent natures. Immoderation towards good, if it offend me not, it amazeth, and troubleth me how I should call it. Not Posthumius the Dictator, that brought his own sonne to his end, whom the heat and forwardnesse of youth, had haply before his ranke, made to charge his enemies, seeme so just as strange unto me.