Wednesday, August 05, 2020

the lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes the wrong one

--- St. AugustineSermons, CLXIX, quoted by Francis Bacon in The New Organon, Section LXI.

From Francis Bacon: A Selection of His Works, edited by Sidney Warhaft, College Classics in English,
Macmillan, 1982, p. 343
And this is so far well, inasmuch as it leaves the honour of the ancients untouched. For they are no wise disparaged, the question between them and me being only as to the way. For as the saying is, the lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes the wrong one. [fn 12, St. Augustine, Sermons, CLXIX] Nay, it is obvious the when a man runs the wrong way, the more active and swift he is the further he will go astray.