A comprehesive course on the Constitution?

[Scarberry, Mark]

Correction: I left out the word "do" from the quote, which should read: "No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the misfortune is to do it solemnly."
 
Mark Scarberry

________________________________

From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu on behalf of Scarberry, Mark
Sent: Fri 2/15/2008 10:59 AM
To: conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: RE: A comprehesive course on the Constitution?


Perhaps there would be room for this quote from Montaigne (Essays, Book III, Chapter 1, the first line of "Of Profit and Honesty," as found on numerous quotable quote websites and on a poster I used to have up on the my wall of my dorm room):
 
"No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the misfortune is to it solemnly." 
 
I've also seen the quote attributed to D.A. Battista, whoever that is. Here is the 17th Century Charles Cotton translation of that passage, including the latin quote that followed it in Montaigne's essay (I'm not sure whether the translation of the Latin quote is Cotton's):
 
"No man is free from speaking foolish things; but the worst on't is, when a man labours to play the fool: 
               ' Nae iste magno conatu magnas nugas dixerit. '

     [' Truly he, with a great effort will shortly say a mighty trifle. '
     --Terence, Heaut., act iii., s. 4.]"
[from Project Gutenberg, The Essays of Montaigne, Complete, http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3600] <http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3600]>  . 
Mark S. Scarberry
Pepperdine University School of Law
 
 

	 

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