Proverbs 20:3 [It is] an honour for a man to cease from strife: but every fool will be meddling.
Ver. 3. It is an honour for a man to cease from strife.] To stint it rather than to stir it; to be first in promoting peace and seeking reconciliation, as Abraham did in the controversy with Lot. Memento - said Aristippus to Aeschines, with whom he had a long strife - quod cum essem natu maior, prior te accesserim. a Remember, said he, that though I am the elder man, yet I first sought reconciliation. I shall well remember it, said Aeschines, and while I live I shall acknowledge thee the better man, because I was first in falling out, and thou art first in falling in again. b
But every fool will be meddling.] Or, Mingling himself with strife; he hath an itching to be doing with it, to be quarrelling, brabling, lawing. Once it was counted ominous to commence actions and follow suits. c Now nothing more ordinary, for every trifle, treading upon their grass, or the like. This is as great folly as for every slight infirmity to take physic.
a Plutarch, de Cohib. Ira.
b Laer., lib. ii.
c Caesar, Com.