Measure for Measure

O, what may man within him hide, Though angel on the outward side!

thou art death's fool; For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun And yet runn'st toward him still.

They say, best men are moulded out of faults; And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad:

What king so strong Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?

Is the world as it was, man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The trick of it? DUKE VINCENTIO Still thus, and thus; still worse!

it oft falls out, To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean:

liberty plucks justice by the nose;

There is scarce truth enough alive to make societies secure; but security enough to make fellowships accurst: much upon this riddle runs the wisdom of the world. This news is old enough, yet it is every day's news.

back-wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes.