To speak well of a base man is much the same as speaking ill of a good man.
 Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1478 – 1519). copy citation

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Author Leonardo da Vinci
Source The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci
Topic good
Date 1478 – 1519
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Jean Paul Richter in 1888
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5000/pg5000-images.html

Context

“Patience serves us against insults precisely as clothes do against the cold. For if you multiply your garments as the cold increases, that cold cannot hurt you; in the same way increase your patience under great offences, and they cannot hurt your feelings. 1196. To speak well of a base man is much the same as speaking ill of a good man. 1197. Envy wounds with false accusations, that is with detraction, a thing which scares virtue. 1198. We are deceived by promises and time disappoints us ... [Footnote 2: The rest of this passage may be rendered in various ways, but none of them give a satisfactory meaning.]” source