Remordere

Non est grande, mi Domnion, garrire per angulos et medicorum tabernas, ac de mundo ferre sententiam; hic bene dixit, ille male; iste Scripturas novit, ille delirat; iste loquax, ille infantissimus est. ut de omnibus iudicet, cuius hoc iudicio meruit? contra quemlibet passim in triviis strepere, et congerere maledicta, non crimina, scurrarum est, et paratorum semper ad lites. moveat manum, figat stilum, commoveat se, et quidquid postest scriptis ostendat. det nobis occasionem respondendi disertitudini suae. possum remordere, si velim; possum genuinum laesus infigere; et nos didicimus litteras,
“et nos saepe manum ferulae subtraximus” [Juvenal, Sat. 1.15].
(Jerome, Ep. 50.5)

It is no difficult matter, my dear Domnio, to chatter at street corners or in apothecaries’ shops and to pass judgment on the world. “So-and-so has made a good speech, so-and-so a bad one; this man knows the Scriptures, that one is crazy; this man talks glibly, that never says a word at all.” But who considers him worthy thus to judge every one? To make an outcry against a man in every street, and to heap, not definite charges, but vague imputations, on his head, is nothing. Any buffoon or litigiously disposed person can do as much. Let him put forth his hand, put pen to paper, and bestir himself; let him write books and prove in them all he can. Let him give me a chance of replying to his eloquence. I can return bite for bite, if I like; when hurt myself, I can fix my teeth in my opponent. I too have had a liberal education. As Juvenal says, “I also have often withdrawn my hand from the ferule.” (tr. William Henry Fremantle, George Lewis and/or William Gibson Martley)