Our learning ought to be our lives’ amendment, and the fruits of our private study ought to appear in our public behavior.

Nashe’s sentence insists that learning is not an ornamental possession but a moral and practical discipline. “Amendment” frames education as self-correction: study should reform character, sharpen judgment, and curb vice rather than merely increase cleverness. The second clause presses the point outward—private reading and reflection must “appear” as visible conduct in the world, so scholarship is tested by public behavior (speech, civic responsibility, ethical action). The aphorism also fits a common Renaissance humanist ideal: eloquence and erudition are justified only when they produce virtue and social benefit, not pedantry or display.