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Based on Baltasar Gracian’s The Art of Worldly Wisdom

Make People Your Teachers

All people have their own particular strengths and weaknesses.

There is no one who cannot teach somebody something, and there is no one so excellent that he cannot be excelled.

It is wise and useful to appreciate and see the good in everyone, and know how to make use of everyone.


Be sure to have relationships with people who can teach you.

By doing so, you will combine the pleasure of social interaction with the advantages of instruction, and make your companions double as your teachers.


Surround yourself with intelligent and skilled people, in order to advantage from their abilities.


Learn how to guard yourself from injury by observing it happen to others.


Variate

If you have rivals, vary your mode of action, and do not always do things the same way. This will distract his attention.

Do not always act on first or even second impulse—people will soon recognize the uniformity and use anticipation to frustrate your designs.

It is easy to kill a bird on the wing that flies straight, but not so easy to kill one that twists and turns.

The enemy is on the watch, and great skill is required to outwit him.

The tactician never plays the card the opponent expects, still less the one he wants.


Know Motives

Find out each person’s likes and motives. These are indeed the means of setting an individual’s will into action.

You must know where to get at anyone.

Every choice has special motives that vary according to taste.

All people idolize certain things, most of which generally fall under the categories of self-interest, pleasure, or reputation.

By knowing and using a person’s idols and mainsprings of motives, you can control his will.

Utilize his primary motives and ruling passions. These are seldom found in the highest parts of his nature, and often found in the lowest.


So Many People, So Many Tastes

People have different tastes.

What one considers good and pursues, another considers bad and persecutes.

If some applaud something, other will surely condemn it; and if something does not please someone, other will surely appreciate it.

Excellences do not depend on a single person’s pleasure.

Rather than merely regulating everything according to one person’s ideas or allowing your heart to be swayed by whatever opinion comes your way, aim to be independent of any one opinion, trend, or era.


Evading and Declining

Know when and how withdraw and decline yourself from unnecessary affairs, people, and activities that do not concern you and will only end up wasting precious time and energy.

It is better to do nothing than occupy yourself with such things.

To truly be prudent, it is not enough to avoid interfering with others; you must also see that others do not interfere with you.

One is not required to belong to others so much that he does not belong at all to oneself.


Know how to say No.

Since one should not give way to everything or to everybody, it is important to know how to properly make refusals, especially when dealing with powerful people.

It all depends on how you do it.

Yes or No are soon said, but give much to think over.

There are some people who always have no on their lips, whereby they make everything distasteful. No always comes first with them, and when sometimes they give way after all, it does them no good on account of the unpleasant beginning.


Know how to use evasion. That is how clever people escape difficulties. They extricate themselves from the most intricate labyrinth by using some witty application of a bright remark. They get out of a serious contention by an airy nothing or by raising a smile. Most of the great leaders are well grounded in this art.

When you have to refuse something, often the most courteous way is to just change the subject. And sometimes, the highest understanding is to simply pretend you don’t understand.

Do not become responsible for all or for everyone—otherwise, you merely become the slave of all.

Freedom is more precious than any gifts you may be tempted to give it up for.


Cunning and Openness

Combine and alternate a serpent’s cunning with a dove’s openness.

But combine the two in yourself as a prodigy, and not as a scoundrel.

Use the truth without using it all.

The truth requires much caution—either in the telling, or the concealing.

Though even a single lie can destroy one’s reputation for integrity, it is also true that not all truths can be spoken, either for our own sake or for others.

Thus, we must occasionally use cunning—but, since it is so hated a thing, we must also conceal it, not act delightful or boastful about it, and avoid abusing it.


Since those who deceive and lie the least are often those who trust and believe the most, honest people are often the most deceivable.

Indeed, being deceived is not always due to stupidity; it is often due to sheer goodness.


In certain situations, it can be very wise to conceal your wisdom, and pretend to be unwise.

This is a form of adapting to others, and something that the cleverest of people frequently do.

Why suffer from your wisdom?

Isn’t it wiser to bluff being foolish when you ought to?


Take Care With Information

Since deceit is common, our caution should be redoubled.

However, we must use this caution without letting it show itself—for otherwise, it will arouse distrust, cause annoyance, awaken revenge, and give rise to an unimaginable number of ills.


Take care with information—the most of it is made up of mostly lies.

And when truth travels, it is altered by the moods, passions, and dispositions of the people it has traveled through.

Receive all information with caution—whether the source praises, and especially if it blames.

Consider the source’s intentions and footing, and let reflection test for falsity and exaggeration.


Avoid becoming satisfied with first impressions, first objects, and first propositions. Otherwise, you will become their slaves.

Always leave room for other hearings.

Some marry the first account they hear, and make all others live with them as concubines; or are like new casks that keep the scent of the first liquor they hold, be it good or bad.

How can the truth find a lodging with them?

And how can they avoid having evil people take advantage of their superficiality and gullibility?


Do not make mistakes about character—this is an easy error to make, and one that can cause all sorts of problems.

“‘Tis better to be cheated in the price of goods than in the quality.”

In dealing with people, more than with other things, it is necessary to really look within.

Indeed, knowing people is far different from knowing mere things.

It is profound philosophy to study the depths of feeling and distinguish traits of character.

People must be studied as deeply as books.


Self

Know yourself—know your talents and capacity in judgment and inclination.

Though it is not so easy to know what you really are, it is difficult and perhaps impossible to master yourself without knowing yourself.


Know and cultivate your strongest qualities and preeminent gifts. They will assist the rest.

Everyone would have excelled in something if he had known his strong point.

Notice in what quality you surpass, and take charge of that. In some people, judgment excels, and in others, valor.

Most people, however, do violence to their natural aptitude, and thus attain superiority in nothing.

Time enlightens us too late of what was first only a flattering of the passions.


Know what is lacking in yourself.

Many would have been great people if they had not had something lacking, and without which they could not rise to the height of perfection.

It is indeed remarkable how some people could be much better if they could be just a little better in something.

Perhaps they do take themselves seriously enough to do justice to their great abilities.


Test the Wind

Throw straws in the air to test the wind.

By finding out how things will be perceived—especially from those whose reception or success is doubtful—you can determine a great deal about their chances of turning out well, and decide whether you should proceed in earnest or withdraw entirely.

By trying people’s intentions in this way, the wise person knows on what ground he stands.

This is the great rule of foresight in asking, in desiring, and in ruling.


Do Not Extend Blunders

Do not turn one blunder into two.

People often commit a few blunders in order to remedy one, or excuse one piece of irrelevancy by still another.

A wise person may make one slip, but never two; and that only in running, and not while standing still.


Do not follow up a folly.

People sometimes make an obligation out of a blunder. Having entered the wrong path, they think it proves their strength of character to go on in it. They inwardly regret their error, and outwardly excuse it. Early on they were perhaps inattentive, in the end they are indeed foolish.

Neither an unconsidered promise nor a mistaken resolution is really binding; and yet, some continue in their folly and prefer to be constant yet foolish.


According to the Moment

Live according to the moment.

Our acts and thoughts and all must be determined by changing circumstances that will not adapt to us.

Do not live by certain fixed rules, or let your will pledge to fixed conditions.

What is right or wrong now might not necessarily be so later.

Some people, however, absurdly and stubbornly in error, expect all the circumstances of an action should bend to their own eccentric whims, rather than vice versa.

The wise person knows that the very Pole Star of prudence is found in acting according to the current circumstances.