Barbæ tenus sapientes.

You know them to be wise by their beards. This was used to be applied to persons who placed all knowledge and goodness in dress, and external appearance, or in the performance of certain ceremonies. «I fast twice a week», said the Pharisee, «and give tithes of all I possess», but he was not accepted. «Si philosophum oporteat ex barba metiri, hircos primam laudem ablaturos», if the beard made the philosopher, then the goat would have a just right to that title, or as the Greek epigrammatist has it,

«If beards long and bushy true wisdom denote,
Then Plato must yield to a shaggy he-goat».

«At non omnes monachi sunt, qui cuculo onerantur, nec omnes generosi, qui torquem gestant auream, aut reges, qui diadernate insigniuntur»; but all are not monks who wear a cowl, or gentlemen who are decorated with golden chains, or kings who are crowned. Those only in reality deserve the titles, who act consistently with the characters they assume. For there are many who talk of Robin Hood, who never shot with his how. Diga barba qua haga, let your beard advise you; that is, let it remind you that you are a man, and that you do nothing unbecoming that character.