In every human being, “reason ought to reign like a king,” and in every respublica, “sound deliberation” is the best way to rule. But every human being is free and can “tak[e] counsel [consilium] of … desire” and thus freely “take from desire” a “plan … reckless and shameless,” so reckless, so shameless that fratricide and generations of civil war have occurred since the beginning of recorded history.

For reason to reign, art must help, or so Lucian shows through his skillful use of humor. More does the same in his collection of 260 epigrams. Though intended to be published with the first edition of Utopia, the epigrams were actually published only with the second, thus providing another level of dialectical engagement for the attentive reader of More's puzzling masterpiece.

The 260 epigrams display the wide and humorous and all-too-familiar range of human irrationality. Many are comic sketches translated from the Greek Anthology, and More's original poems are often reminiscent of Terence, the Roman comedian he loved.