Latest / Logic Library / 05 - The Art of Being Lucky - The Art of Worldly Wisdom - Baltasar Gracian

Transcript

05 - The Art of Being Lucky - The Art of Worldly Wisdom - Baltasar Gracian · Logic Library

• 0:00
  The art of being lucky. There are rules of luck. It is not
• 0:04
  all chance. With the wise. It can be assisted by care. Some
• 0:09
  content themselves with placing themselves confidently at the gate of fortune, waiting till she
• 0:15
  opens it. Others do better and press forward and profit by their clever boldness,
• 0:20
  reaching the goddess and winning her favor on the wings of their virtue and
• 0:24
  valor. But on a true philosophy, there is no other umpire than virtue
• 0:30
  and insight. For there is no luck or ill luck, except wisdom and
• 0:35
  the reverse. Twenty two A man of knowledge to the point. Wise men
• 0:41
  arm themselves with tasteful and elegant erudition, a practical knowledge of what is going
• 0:47
  on, not of a common kind, but more like an expert. They
• 0:51
  possess a copious store of wise and witty sayings and of noble deeds, and
• 0:57
  know how to employ them on fitting occasions. More is often taught by a
• 1:00
  jest, done by the most serious teaching. Pet knowledge helps some more than
• 1:06
  the seven arts, be they ever so liberal. Twenty three b spotless the
• 1:14
  indispensable condition of perfection. Few live without some weak point, either physical or
• 1:19
  moral, which they pamper because they could easily cure it. The keenness of
• 1:25
  others often regrets to see a slight defect attaching itself to a whole assembly of
• 1:30
  elevated qualities. And yet a single cloud can hide the whole of the sun.
• 1:34
  There are likewise patches on our reputation, which ill will soon finds out
• 1:41
  and is continually noticing. The highest skill is to transform them into ornament.
• 1:47
  So Caesar hid his natural defects with the laurel. Twenty four. Keep the
• 1:53
  imagination under control, sometimes correcting, sometimes assisting it, for it is all
• 2:00
  important for our happiness, and even sets the reason right. It can tyrannize,
• 2:06
  and is not content with looking on, but influences and even often dominates
• 2:09
  life, causing it to be happy or burdensome, according to the folly to
• 2:15
  which it leads. For it makes us either contented or discontented with ourselves before
• 2:21
  some it continually holds up the penalties of action and becomes the mortifying lash of
• 2:27
  these fools. To others, it promises happiness and adventure with blissful delusion.
• 2:32
  It can do all this unless the most prudent self control keeps it in subjection.
• 2:38
  Twenty five. Know how to take a hint. Twas once the art
• 2:45
  of arts to be able to discourse, now tis no longer sufficient. We
• 2:50
  must know how to take a hint, especially in disabusing ourselves. He cannot
• 2:54
  make himself understood, who does not himself easily understand? But on the other
• 3:00
  and there are pretended diviners of the heart and linkses of the intentions. The
• 3:05
  very truth which concern us most can only be half spoken, But with the
• 3:09
  tension we can grasp the whole meaning. When you hear anything favorable, keep
• 3:15
  a tight rein on your credulity. If unfavorable, give it the spur Twenty
• 3:21
  six. Find out each man's thumb screw tis the art of setting their wills
• 3:28
  in action. It needs more skill than resolution. You must know where to
• 3:34
  get at any one. Every volition has a special motive, which varies according
• 3:38
  to taste. All men are idolatus, some of fame, others of self
• 3:44
  interest, most of pleasure. Skill consists in knowing these idols in order to
• 3:50
  bring them into play. Knowing any man's mainspring of motive, you have,
• 3:55
  as it were, the key to his will. Have resort to primemotors,
• 4:00
  which are not always the highest, but more often the lowest part of his
• 4:03
  nature. There are more dispositions badly organized than while first guess a man's ruling
• 4:12
  passion, appeal to it by a word, set it in motion by temptation,
• 4:16
  and you will infallibly give check mate to his freedom of will twenty seven.
• 4:23
  Price intensity, more than extent. Excellence resides in quality, not in
• 4:30
  quantity. The best is always few and rare, much lower's value. Even
• 4:35
  among men, giants are commonly the real dwarfs. Some reckon books by the
• 4:42
  thickness, as if they were written to try the brawn more than the brain.
• 4:46
  Extent alone never rises above mediocrity. It is the misfortune of universal geniuses
• 4:53
  that, in attempting to be at home everywhere, are so nowhere. Intensity
• 4:58
  gives eminence and rises to the heroic in matters sublime twenty eight common in nothing,
• 5:08
  first, not in taste. O great and wise to be ill at
• 5:12
  ease when your deeds please the mob. The excesses of popular applause never satisfied
• 5:16
  a sensible some. There are such chameleons of popularity that they find enjoyment not
• 5:24
  in the sweet savors of Apollo, but in the breath of the mob.
• 5:28
  Secondly, not in intelligence, take no pleasure in the wonder of the mob,
• 5:32
  For ignorance never gets beyond wonder, While vulgar folly wanders, wisdom watches
• 5:39
  for the trick. Twenty nine. A man of rectitude clings to the sect
• 5:45
  of right with such tenacity of purpose that neither the passions of the mob nor
• 5:49
  the violence of the tyrant can ever cause him to transgressed bounds of right.
• 5:55
  But who shall be such a phoenix of equity? What a scanty following has
• 6:00
  rectitude? Many praise it, indeed, but for others others follow it till
• 6:06
  danger threatens. Then the false deny it, the politic conceal it, for
• 6:12
  it cares not if it fights with friendship, power, or even self interest.
• 6:16
  Then comes the danger of desertion. Then astute men make plausible distinctions so
• 6:23
  as not to stand in the way of their superiors or of reasons of state.
• 6:27
  But a straightforward and constant regard dissimulation as a kind of treason, and
• 6:32
  set more store on tenacity than on sagacity. Such are always to be found
• 6:39
  on the side of truth. And if they desert a party, they do
• 6:42
  not change from thickleness. But because the others have first deserted truth. Thirty
• 6:49
  have naught to do with occupations of ill repute, still less with fads that
• 6:56
  bring more notoriety than repute. There are many fancive sects, and from all
• 7:00
  the prudent man has to flee. There are bizarre tastes that always take to
• 7:05
  their heart all that wise men repudiate. They live in love with singularity.
• 7:12
  This may make them well known, indeed, but more as objects of ridicule
• 7:15
  than of repute. A cautious man does not even make profession of his wisdom,
• 7:21
  still less of those matters that make their followers ridiculous. These need not
• 7:26
  be specified, for common contempt has sufficiently singled them out. End of Section five