Latest / The Philosophy Insights Collection / 14 - Have Friends - The Art of Worldly Wisdom - Baltasar Gracian

Transcript

14 - Have Friends - The Art of Worldly Wisdom - Baltasar Gracian · The Philosophy Insights Collection

• 0:00
  Have friends tis a second existence. Every friend is good and wise. For
• 0:06
  his friend among them, all everything turns to good. Every one is as
• 0:12
  others wish him. That they may wish him well, he must win their
• 0:16
  hearts and sow their tongues. There is no magic like a good turn.
• 0:20
  And the way to gain friendly feelings is to do friendly acts. The most
• 0:26
  and best of us depend on others. We have to live either among friends
• 0:30
  or among enemies. Seek some one every day to be a well wisher,
• 0:35
  if not a friend, by and by, after trial, some of these
• 0:39
  will become intimate one twelve. Gain good will. For thus the first and
• 0:47
  highest cause foresees and furthers the greatest objects. By gaining their good will,
• 0:53
  you gain men's good opinion. Some trust so much to merit that they neglect
• 0:58
  grace. But wise men know that service road without a lift from favor is
• 1:03
  a long way. Indeed, good will facilitates and supplies everything. It supposes,
• 1:10
  gifts or even supplies them as courage, zeal, knowledge, or even
• 1:14
  discretion. Whereas defects it will not see because it does not search for them.
• 1:19
  It arises from some common interest, either material as disposition, nationality,
• 1:26
  relationship, fatherland, office or formal, which is a higher kind of communion
• 1:32
  in capacity, obligation, reputation, or merit. The whole difficulty is to
• 1:38
  gain good will. To keep it is easy. It has, however,
• 1:42
  to be sought for and when found to be utilized. One thirteen. In
• 1:49
  prosperity, prepare for adversity. It is both wiser and easier to collect winter
• 1:56
  stores. In summer. In prosperity, favors are cheap, and friends are
• 2:00
  many. Tis well. Therefore to keep them for more unlucky days. For
• 2:05
  adversity costs dear and has no helpers retain a store of friendly and obliged persons.
• 2:13
  The day may come when their price will go up. Low minds never
• 2:17
  have friends. In luck, they will not recognize them. In misfortune,
• 2:23
  they will not be recognized by them. Fourteen Never compete. Every competition damages
• 2:30
  the credit. Our rivals sees occasion to obscure us so as to outshine us.
• 2:37
  Few wage honorable war. Rivalry discloses faults which courtesy would hide. Many
• 2:44
  have lived in good repute while they had no rivals. The heat of conflict
• 2:49
  gives life or even new life to dead scandals, and digs up long buried
• 2:53
  skeletons. Competition begins with the belittolling, and seeks aid wherever it can,
• 3:00
  not only where it ought. And when the weapons of abuse do not affect
• 3:04
  their purpose, as often or mostly happens our opponents, use them for revenge,
• 3:09
  and use them at least for beating away the dust of oblivion from anything
• 3:15
  to our discredit. Men of good will are always at peace. Men of
• 3:20
  good repute and dignity are men of good will. Fifteen. Get used to
• 3:27
  the failings of your familiars as you do to ugly faces. It is indispensable
• 3:34
  if they depend on us or we on them. There are wretched characters with
• 3:38
  whom one cannot live, yet not without them. Therefore, clever folks get
• 3:43
  used to them as to ugly faces, so that they are not obliged to
• 3:46
  do so suddenly, under the pressure of necessity. At first they arouse disgust,
• 3:53
  but gradually they lose this influence, and reflection provides for disgust or puts
• 3:59
  up with it. Sixteen. Only act with honorable men. You can trust
• 4:05
  them, and they you. Their honor is the best surety of their behavior,
• 4:11
  even in misunderstandings, for they always act having regard to what they are.
• 4:16
  Hence tis better to have a dispute with honorable people than to have a
• 4:20
  victory over dishonorable ones. You cannot treat with the ruined, for they have
• 4:27
  no hostages for rectitude. With them, there is no true friendship, and
• 4:31
  their agreements are not binding, however stringent they may appear, because they have
• 4:35
  no feeling of honor. Never have to do with such men, For if
• 4:41
  honor does not restrain a man, virtue will not, since honor is the
• 4:46
  throne of rectitude. Seventeen. Never talk of yourself. You must either praise
• 4:55
  yourself, which is vain, or blame yourself, which is little minded.
• 5:00
  It ill beseems him that speaks, and ill pleases him that hears. And
• 5:04
  if you should avoid this in ordinary conversation, how much more in official matters,
• 5:10
  and above all in public speaking, where every appearance of unwisdom really is
• 5:15
  unwise. The same want of tact lies in speaking of a man in his
• 5:19
  presence, owing to the danger of going to one of two extremes, flattery
• 5:26
  or censure. Eighteen. Acquire the reputation of courtesy, for it is enough
• 5:32
  to make you liked. Politeness is the main ingredient of culture a kind of
• 5:39
  witchery that wins the regard of all as surely as discourtesy gains their disfavor and
• 5:45
  opposition. If this latter springs from pride, it is abominable, and if
• 5:50
  from bad breeding it is despicable. Better too much courtesy than too little,
• 5:57
  provided it be not the same for all which to generates into injustice between opponents,
• 6:02
  it is especially due as a proof of valor. It costs little and
• 6:08
  helps much. Every One is honored who gives honor. Politeness and honor have
• 6:14
  this advantage that they remain with him who displays them to others nineteen avoid becoming
• 6:23
  disliked. There is no occasion to seek dislike. It comes without seeking quickly
• 6:30
  enough. There are many who hate of their own accord, without knowing the
• 6:33
  why or the how. Their ill will outruns our readiness to please. Their
• 6:40
  ill nature is more prone to do others harm than their cupidity is eager to
• 6:45
  gain advantage for themselves. Some manage to be on bad terms with all because
• 6:50
  they always either produce or experience vexation of spirit. Once hate has taken root,
• 6:58
  it is like bad repute, difficult to eradicate. Wise men are feared.
• 7:02
  The malevolent are abhorred, the arrogant are regarded with disdain, buffoons with
• 7:09
  contempt, eccentrics with neglect. Therefore, pay respect that you may be respected,
• 7:16
  and know that to be esteemed you must show esteem. One twenty Live
• 7:25
  practically. Even knowledge has to be in the fashion, and where it is
• 7:30
  not, it is wise to affect ignorance. Thought and taste change with the
• 7:34
  times. Do not be old fashioned in your ways of thinking, and let
• 7:39
  your taste be in the modern style. In everything, the taste of the
• 7:44
  many carries the votes for the time being, one must follow it in the
• 7:47
  hope of leading it to higher things. In the adornment of the body as
• 7:53
  of the mind, adapt yourself to the present, even though the past appear
• 7:57
  better. But this rule does not apply to kindness, For goodness is for
• 8:03
  all time. It is neglected nowadays and seems out of date. Truth speaking,
• 8:09
  keeping your word, and so too. Good people seem to come from
• 8:11
  the good old times. Yet they are liked for all that, but in
• 8:16
  such a way that, even when they all exist, they are not in
• 8:20
  the fashion and are not imitated. What a misfortune for our age that it
• 8:26
  regards virtue as a stranger and vice. As a matter of course, if
• 8:31
  you are wise, live as you can. If you cannot live as you
• 8:35
  would think more highly of what fate has given you than of what it has
• 8:39
  denied. End of Section fourteen.