Latest / Logic Library / 04 - Cultivate Those Who Can Teach You - The Art of Worldly Wisdom - Baltasar Gracian
Transcript
- Cultivate those who can teach you. Let friendly intercourse be a school of knowledge, and culture be taught through conversation. Thus you make your friends your teachers, and mingle the pleasures of conversation with the advantages of instruction. Sensible persons thus enjoy alternating pleasures. They reap applause for what they say and gain instruction from what they hear. We are always attracted to others by our own interest, but in this case it is of a higher kind. Wise men frequent the houses of great noblemen, not because they are temples of vanity, but as theaters of good breeding. There be gentlemen who have the credit of worldly wisdom, because they are not only themselves oracles of all nobleness by their example and their behavior, but those who surround them form a well bred academy of worldly wisdom of the best and noblest kind. Twelve Nature and arturial and workmanship. There is no beauty unadorned, and no excellence that would not become barbaric if it were not supported by artifice. This remedies the evil and improves the good. Nature scarcely ever, gives us the very best. For that, we must have recourse to art. Without this, the best of natural dispositions is uncultured, and have is lacking to any excellence. If training is absent, everyone has something unpolished without artificial training, and every kind of excellence needs some polish. Thirteen act sometimes on second thoughts, sometimes on first impulse. Man's life is a warfare against the malice of men. Sagacity fights with strategic changes of intention. It never does what it threatens. It aims only at escaping notice. It aims in the air with dexterity and strikes home in an unexpected direction, always seeking to conceal its game. It lets a purpose appear in order to attract the opponent's attention, but then turns round and conquers by the unexpected. But a penetrating intelligence anticipates this by watchfulness and lurks in ambush. It always understands the opposite of what the opponent wishes it to understand, and recognizes every fiend of guile. It lets the first impulse pass by and waits for the second or even the third. Sagacity now rises to higher flights on seeing its artifice foreseen, and tries to deceive by truth. Itself changes its game in order to change its deceit, and cheats by not cheating, and founds deception on the greatest candor. But the opposing intelligence is on guard with increased watchfulness, and discovers the darkness concealed by the light, and deciphers every move, the more subtle because more simple. In this way, the guile of the python combats the far doubting rays of Apollo. Fourteen. The thing itself and the way it is done. Substance is not enough. Accident is also required, as does Scholastics say, a bad manner spoils everything, even reason and justice. A good one supplies everything, gilds a know sweetened truth, and adds a touch of beauty to old age itself. The how plays a large part in affairs. A good manner steals into the affections. Fine behavior is a joy in life, and a pleasant expression helps out of a difficulty in a remarkable way. Fifteen Keep ministering spirits. It is a privilege of the mighty to surround themselves with the champions of intellect. These extricate them from every fear of ignorance. These worry out for them. The moot points of every difficulty. Tis a rare greatness to make use of the wise, and far exceeds the barbarous taste of Tigranis, who had a fancy for captive monarchs as his servants. It is a novel kind of supremacy, the best that life can offer. To have as servants by skill, those who by nature are our masters, tis a great thing to know little, to live no real life without knowledge. There is remarkable cleverness in studying without study, in getting much by means of many, and through them all to become wise. Afterwards, you speak in the council chamber on behalf of many, and as many sages speak through your mouth, as were consulted beforehand. You thus obtain the fame of an oracle by others toil such ministering spirits, distill the best books, and serve up the quintessence of wisdom. But he that cannot have sages in service should have thee for his friends. Sixteen. Knowledge and good intentions to gather ensure continuance of success. A fine intellect wedded to a wicked will was always an unnatural monster. A wicked will and venoms all excellences helped by knowledge, It only ruins with greater subtlety. 'tis a miserable superiority that only results in ruin Knowledge without sense is double folly seventeen. Vary the mode of action not always the same way, so as to distract attention, especially if there be a rival, not always from first impulse. They will soon recognize the uniformity, and by anticipating, frustrate your designs. It is easy to kill a bird on the wing that flies straight, not so one that twists. Nor always act on second thoughts. They can discern the plan the second time the enemy is on the watch. Great skill is required to circumvent him. The gamestern never plays the card the opponent expects still less that which he wants. Eighteen. Application and ability. There is no attaining eminence without both, and where they unite there is the greatest eminence. Mediocrity obtains more with application than superiority without it. Work is the price which is paid for reputation. What costs little is little worth even for the highest posts. It is only in some cases application that is wanting. Rarely the talent to prefer moderate success in great things than eminence in a humble post has the excuse of a generous mind, But not so to be content with humble mediocrity when you could shine among the highest. Thus nature and art are both needed, and application sets on them. Deceeal nineteen arouse no exit graggerated expectations on entering. It is the usual ill luck of all celebrities not to fulfill afterwards the expectations beforehand formed of them. The real can never equal be imagined, for it is easy to form ideals, but very difficult to realize them. Imagination wedds hope and gives birth to much more than things are in themselves. However great the excellencies, they never suffice to fulfill expectations. And as men find themselves disappointed with their exorbitant expectations, they are more ready to be disillusioned than to admire. Hope is a great falsifier of truth. Let skill guard against this by ensuring that fruition exceeds desire. A few creditable attempts at the beginning are sufficient to arouse curiosity without pledging one to the final object. It is better that reality should surpass the design and is better than was thought. This rule does not apply to the wicked, for the same exaggeration is a great aid to them. They are defeated amid general applause, and what seemed at first extreme ruin comes to be thought quite bearable. Twenty A man of the age. The rarest individuals depend on their age. It is not every one that finds the age she deserves, and even when he finds it, he does not always know how to utilize it. Some men have been worthy of a better century, for every species of good does not always triumph. Things have their period, Even excellencies are subject to fashion. The sage has one advantage. He is immortal. If this is not his century, many others will be. And of Section four