Aphorisms 1–75
1 Everything has reached its peak by now, and being a true person the highest peak of all. More is required today to make one wise man than once went to make seven,1 and more is needed to deal with a single man in these times than with a whole people in times past.
2 Temperament and wit. The two axes on which a man’s gifts shine: one without the other, half the happiness. Brains are not enough; a happy temperament is wanted too. The fool’s misfortune: to miss his calling in his station, his post, his place, his company.
3 Keep matters in suspense. Wonder at what is new turns into esteem for one’s successes. Playing with the cards face up is neither useful nor pleasant. Not declaring oneself at once keeps people in suspense, all the more where a lofty post makes one the object of everyone’s expectation; it hints at mystery in everything, and its very secrecy calls forth veneration. Even in making oneself understood, plainness is to be avoided, just as in one’s dealings not everyone is to be let inside. Guarded silence is the sanctuary of good sense. A resolution made known was never esteemed; rather it lays itself open to criticism, and if it turns out badly, it is doubly unhappy. Imitate, then, the way of the divine, so as to keep men watching and wakeful.
4 Knowledge and courage take turns at greatness. Being immortal, they make men immortal; a man is as much as he knows, and the wise man can do anything. A man without knowledge, a world in the dark. Counsel and strength, eyes and hands: without courage, wisdom is barren.
5 Create dependence. It is not the one who gilds the idol who makes it a god, but the one who adores it; the shrewd man would rather have people need him than thank him. To trust to base gratitude is to rob courteous hope, for hope has as long a memory as gratitude has a short one. More is got from dependence than from courtesy: the man who has drunk his fill turns his back on the spring at once, and the squeezed orange falls from the gold plate into the mud. When dependence ends, the attentions paid in return end too, and with them esteem. Let it be a lesson, and the first that experience teaches, to keep dependence alive without satisfying it, keeping even a crowned master always in need of oneself; but one must not go so far as to keep silent so that he errs, nor make another’s harm incurable for one’s own profit.
6 A man at his peak. No one is born finished. A man perfects himself day by day, in his person and in his post, until he reaches the point of consummate being, the full complement of gifts and eminences. It will be known by a refined taste, a purified wit, a mature judgment, a will cleared of its dregs. Some never become whole; something is always missing. Others are slow in the making. The consummate man, wise in words and sensible in deeds, is admitted into the rare company of the discerning, and is even sought after by it.
7 Avoid victories over one’s master. All winning breeds hatred, and winning over one’s master is either foolish or fatal. Superiority was always hated, and superiority over a superior all the more. The attentive man will usually hide common advantages, as beauty is played down by careless dress. There may well be those willing to yield in good fortune or in temperament, but in wit, no one, much less a sovereign. Wit is the king of attributes, and so every crime against it was lese majesty. Sovereigns are sovereign, and wish to be so in what matters most. Princes like to be helped, but not surpassed, and they want advice to look like a reminder of something they had forgotten rather than a light on something they could not reach. The stars teach us this subtlety, and happily: though they are the sun’s children, and shining, they never presume upon its splendor.
8 The man beyond passion: a gift of the highest loftiness of spirit. His very superiority frees him from subjection to stray, vulgar impressions. There is no greater mastery than mastery of oneself and one’s feelings; it amounts to a triumph of free will. And when passion takes hold of the person, let it not dare touch the office, and all the less, the higher the office: a refined way to spare oneself trouble, and even a short cut to reputation.
9 Belie the failings of one’s nation. Water takes on the good or bad qualities of the veins it runs through, and man those of the climate where he is born. Some owe more than others to their homelands, because a kinder zenith fell to them there. No nation escapes some native defect, not even the most cultivated, and its neighbors are quick to censure it, either as a precaution or as a consolation. It is a victorious skill to correct these national blemishes, or at least to belie them: one wins the applauded credit of being unique among one’s own, for what was least expected was esteemed the more. There are also failings of lineage, of station, of post, and of age, which, if they all meet in one person and are not forestalled by attention, make an intolerable monster.
10 Fortune and Fame. What is fickle in the one is firm in the other. The first for living, the second for afterward; the one against envy, the other against oblivion. Fortune is desired and sometimes helped; fame is worked for. The desire for reputation is born of virtue. Fame was, and is, the sister of giants;2 she always goes to extremes, monsters or prodigies, of abomination or of applause.
11 Associate with those one can learn from. Let friendly dealings be a school of learning, and conversation a cultivated instruction; make teachers of one’s friends, blending the profit of learning with the pleasure of talk. With people of understanding the enjoyment is mutual: what one says is rewarded by the applause it receives, and what one hears by the instruction it gives. What usually draws us to another is our own interest; here it is ennobled. The attentive man frequents the houses of those courtly heroes which are theaters of heroism rather than palaces of vanity. There are lords renowned for their discernment who are themselves oracles of all greatness by their example and their conversation, and besides, the circle of those who attend them is a courtly academy of every good and gallant discernment.
12 Nature and art; material and workmanship. There is no beauty without help, and no perfection that does not lapse into barbarism without the heightening of artifice: artifice rescues the bad and perfects the good. Nature commonly deserts us just when we need it most; let us take refuge in art. The best natural gift is uncultivated without art, and perfections lack half of themselves if they lack culture. Every man tastes coarse without artifice, and needs polishing in every order of perfection.
13 Act on intention, now second, now first. The life of man is warfare against the malice of man, and shrewdness fights with stratagems of intention. It never does what it indicates. It takes aim, yes, but only to dazzle; it feints skillfully at the air and strikes where no one expected, always bent on belying what it showed. It lets one intention fly to hold the rival’s attention, then turns on it at once and wins by surprise. But a penetrating intelligence forestalls it with attentiveness and lies in wait for it with reflection; it always understands the opposite of what it is meant to understand, and at once recognizes any false attempt. It lets every first intention pass and waits for the second, and even the third. Simulation, seeing its artifice found out, goes further and tries to deceive with truth itself: it changes its game to change its trick, makes artifice out of having no artifice, and founds its cunning on the greatest candor. Observation comes to meet it, seeing through its sharpness, and discovers the darkness dressed in light; it deciphers the intention, which is the better hidden the simpler it looks. Thus the craft of Python fights against the candor of Apollo’s piercing rays.3
14 The thing and the manner. Substance is not enough; circumstance is required as well. A bad manner spoils everything, even justice and reason. A good one makes up for everything: it gilds a no, sweetens the truth, and puts rouge on old age itself. The how has a large part in things, and a pleasing little manner is a cardsharp who wins every taste. Fine bearing is the finery of living, and a good turn of phrase gets one out of any difficulty singularly well.
15 Have auxiliary wits. The happiness of the powerful: to surround oneself with champions of understanding who will get one out of every tight spot of ignorance and fight one’s battles against difficulty. It is a singular greatness to make use of the wise, far beyond the barbarous taste of Tigranes,4 who liked to keep conquered kings as servants. A new kind of mastery, in the best thing life offers: to make servants, by art, of those whom nature made superior. There is much to know and little life to know it in, and one does not live without knowing. It is therefore a singular skill to study without cost, and much through many, knowing through them all. Afterward such a man speaks in council for many, or through his mouth speak as many wise men as briefed him beforehand, and he wins the credit of an oracle by another’s sweat. These wise men first make a selection of the lessons, and then serve him knowledge in quintessences. But a man who cannot have wisdom in his service should have it among his friends.
16 Knowledge with upright intention. It ensures a harvest of success. A good understanding married to a bad will was always a monstrous violence. Malevolent intention is a poison to perfections, and, aided by knowledge, it does harm with greater subtlety. Unhappy the eminence that is spent on baseness! Knowledge without sense, double madness.
17 Vary the tenor of one’s actions. Not always in the same way, so as to baffle attention, especially a rival’s. Not always on first intention, for one’s uniformity will be caught, and one’s actions anticipated and even frustrated. A bird that flies straight is easy to shoot on the wing; not so one that twists. Nor always on second intention, for the trick will be understood the second time. Malice lies in wait; great subtlety is needed to outwit it. The gambler never plays the card his opponent expects, much less the one he wants.
18 Application and Minerva.5 There is no eminence without both, and where they meet, excellence beyond measure. Mediocrity with application achieves more than superiority without it. Reputation is bought at the price of work; what costs little is worth little. Even for the highest posts, application has been found wanting in some; it seldom belies natural genius. Not to be eminent in a common post because one would rather be middling in a sublime one has the excuse of a noble mind; but to be content with being middling in the lowest when one could be excellent in the highest has none. Nature and art, then, are both required, and application sets the seal on them.
19 Do not make an entrance amid too much expectation. The usual slight suffered by everything much celebrated beforehand is that it does not afterward reach the excess of what was imagined. The real could never catch up with the imagined, because to imagine perfections is easy and to attain them very hard. Imagination marries desire and always conceives far more than things are. However great the excellences, they are not enough to satisfy the idea, and finding it deluded by exorbitant expectation, they undeceive it sooner than they win its admiration. Hope is a great falsifier of truth: let good sense correct it, making sure that the enjoyment exceeds the desire. A first show of credit serves to awaken curiosity, not to stake the whole object. It goes better when the reality exceeds the idea and is more than was believed. This rule will fail with what is bad, for there exaggeration itself helps: when the reality belies the exaggeration, it is greeted with applause, and what was feared as the height of vileness even comes to seem tolerable.
20 A man of his century. Persons of eminent rarity depend on the times. Not all had the age they deserved, and many who had it did not manage to make use of it. Some were worthy of a better century, for not every good thing always triumphs; things have their turn, and even eminences go in and out of fashion. But wisdom has one advantage: it is eternal; and if this is not its century, many others will be.
21 The art of being fortunate. There are rules for luck, for to the wise man not all of it is chance; it can be helped by industry. Some are content to take up a good stance at the doors of Fortune and wait for her to act. Others do better: they go on ahead and make use of sensible daring, which on the wings of its virtue and courage can overtake good fortune and flatter her to good effect. But, philosophizing rightly, there is no other means than virtue and attention, for there is no other good fortune or misfortune than prudence or imprudence.
22 A man of welcome knowledge. The ammunition of the discerning is a courtly, agreeable learning: a practical knowledge of all that is current, leaning toward the well informed, away from the vulgar. To have a seasoned store of salt in sayings and of gallantry in deeds, and to know how to use them at the right moment, for a warning has sometimes gone over better in a joke than in the gravest teaching. Conversable wisdom has been worth more to some than all the seven arts, liberal as they are.6
23 Have no blemish. It is the condition of perfection. Few live without some failing, moral or natural, and they grow fond of their failings when they could easily cure them. Another’s good sense is grieved to see that sometimes the slightest defect dares to attack a sublime universality of gifts, and one cloud is enough to eclipse a whole sun. They are moles on one’s reputation, where malevolence at once halts, and lingers to remark. It would be the height of skill to turn them into distinctions. Thus Caesar knew how to crown his natural defect with laurel.7
24 Temper the imagination. Sometimes by correcting it, sometimes by helping it, for it is everything for happiness, and it even regulates good sense. It turns tyrant: not content with contemplation, it acts, and often even takes over a life, making it pleasant or burdensome according to the folly it falls into, for it makes men discontented or satisfied with themselves. To some it continually holds up sufferings, becoming the household executioner of fools. To others it holds out happiness and adventure with cheerful giddiness. It can do all this unless it is reined in by the most prudent synderesis.8
25 A quick understanding. It was once the art of arts to know how to reason; now that is not enough: one must divine, above all where there is deception to see through. No one can be understood who is not quick to understand. There are water diviners of the heart and lynxes of intention. The truths that matter most to us always come half spoken; let the attentive man take them in with full understanding: in what is favorable, with a tight rein on belief; in what is odious, with the spur.
26 Find each man’s thumbscrew. This is the art of moving wills; it lies more in skill than in resolve: a knowing where to get in with each man. There is no will without its particular fondness, and they differ with the variety of tastes. All men are idolaters: some of esteem, others of interest, and most of pleasure. The trick lies in knowing these idols in order to move men, knowing the impulse that works on each: it is like holding the key to another’s will. One must go to the prime mover, which is not always the highest; most often it is the lowest, for in this world the disordered outnumber the well ordered. First prepare his temperament, then put the word to him, then bear down with his fondness, and it will infallibly checkmate his free will.
27 Set more store by intensity than by extent. Perfection lies not in quantity but in quality. Everything very good was always scant and rare; abundance brings discredit. Even among men, the giants are usually the real dwarfs. Some value books by their bulk, as if they were written to exercise the arms rather than the wits. Extent alone could never rise above mediocrity, and it is the plague of universal men that, wanting to be in everything, they are in nothing. Intensity gives eminence, and heroic eminence if the matter is sublime.
28 Vulgar in nothing. Not in taste. Oh, a great wise man he was who was displeased that his works pleased the many! Surfeits of common applause do not satisfy the discerning. Some are such chameleons of popularity that they take their enjoyment not in the gentle breezes of Apollo but in the breath of the crowd.9 Nor in understanding: let no one take pleasure in the miracles of the crowd, which are nothing but tricks to frighten the ignorant, common folly marveling at them while singular insight sees through them.
29 A man of integrity. Always on the side of reason, with such firmness of purpose that neither vulgar passion nor tyrannical violence will ever make him step over the line of reason. But who will be this phoenix of equity? For integrity has few true followers. Many celebrate it, but not in their own house; others follow it up to the point of danger; there the false deny it and the politic dissemble it. It does not shrink from colliding with friendship, with power, and even with one’s own interest, and here comes the pinch where men disown it. The cunning take refuge in abstractions, with a metaphysics that wins applause, so as not to offend either higher reason or reason of state; but the constant man judges dissembling a kind of treason; he prides himself more on tenacity than on shrewdness; he is found where truth is found; and if he leaves people, it is not from any fickleness of his but of theirs, in leaving truth first.
30 Do not profess discredited occupations. Still less fantastic ones, which serve rather to invite contempt than credit. The sects of caprice are many, and the sensible man must flee them all. There are exotic tastes that always marry whatever the wise repudiate: they are well pleased with every singularity, which, though it makes them well known, does so as a cause of laughter rather than of reputation. Even in the profession of wisdom the attentive man should not make himself conspicuous, much less in those professions that make their devotees ridiculous; nor need these be specified, for common discredit has already singled them out.
31 Know the fortunate, to choose them, and the unfortunate, to flee them. Ill fortune is usually the crime of folly, and of its accomplices: there is no contagion so catching. Never open the door to the least ill, for many others, and greater, will always come after it in ambush. The best trick in the game is knowing how to discard: the lowest card of the trump now running matters more than the highest of the one that has passed. When in doubt, the right move is to join the wise and prudent, who sooner or later come upon good luck.
32 Have the name of giving pleasure. For those who govern, the credit of pleasing is a great one: a distinction of sovereigns for winning the goodwill of all. This is the one advantage of command: to be able to do more good than anyone else. True friends are those who do friendly turns. Others, on the contrary, are set on giving no pleasure, not so much from being tiresome as from malice, opposed in everything to the divine communicativeness.
33 Know how to hold aloof, for if knowing how to say no is a great lesson in living, a greater one is knowing how to say no to oneself, to business, and to personages. There are extraneous occupations, moths of precious time, and to be busy with trifles is worse than doing nothing. For the attentive man it is not enough not to meddle; he must also see that he is not meddled with. He must not belong so much to everyone that he does not belong to himself. Even friends are not to be abused, nor should he want more from them than they grant. Everything excessive is a vice, and much more so in dealings with others. With this sensible temperance he best keeps everyone’s liking, and their esteem, because his most precious decency is not rubbed away. Let him have, then, freedom of temperament, a passion for what is choice, and never sin against the faith of his good taste.
34 Know one’s chief distinction: the outstanding gift, cultivating that one and helping the rest. Anyone would have achieved eminence in something if he had known his advantage. Let him observe his king of attributes and bear down on it with application: in some, judgment excels; in others, courage. Most do violence to their Minerva, and so attain superiority in nothing: what passion is quick to flatter, time is slow to undeceive.
35 Take the measure of things. And most of all of what matters most. All fools are lost for not thinking: they never grasp half of anything; and since they do not perceive the harm or the advantage, neither do they apply diligence. Some make much of what matters little, and little of what matters much, always weighing backward. Many who lack sense never lose it. There are things that should be observed with all one’s effort and kept in the depths of the mind. The wise man takes the measure of everything, but with discrimination he digs where there is depth and reason to pause; and he sometimes thinks there is more than he thinks, so that reflection reaches where apprehension did not.
36 Have one’s fortune sounded: for action, for commitment. It matters more than observing one’s constitution, for if the man who at forty calls on Hippocrates for his health is a fool,10 more so the one who calls on Seneca for good sense. It is a great art to know how to steer it, now waiting for it, for waiting has its place with fortune, now seizing it, for it has its turn and its chance, though its tenor cannot be caught, so irregular is its course. Whoever has found it favorable should go forward with ease, for it is often partial to the bold, and even, being gallant, to the young. Whoever is unlucky should not act; let him withdraw, and not give it room for two misfortunes. Forward, whoever has the upper hand of it.
37 Know darts and know how to use them.11 This is the subtlest point in human dealings. They are thrown out to test men’s spirits, and with them is made the most disguised and penetrating probe of the heart. Others are malicious missiles, dipped in the poison herb of envy, smeared with the venom of passion: imperceptible thunderbolts to bring a man down from grace and from esteem. Many have fallen from favor, high and low, wounded by one slight remark of this kind, men whom a whole conspiracy of vulgar murmuring and singular malevolence had not been enough to make tremble in the least. Others, on the contrary, work in a man’s favor, propping up and confirming his reputation. But with the same skill with which intention throws them, caution must receive them and attention await them, for defense lies in knowing, and the foreseen shot always misses.
38 Know how to quit while winning with fortune. It is what gamblers of reputation do. A fine retreat matters as much as a gallant attack; one should bank one’s exploits when they are enough, when they are many. Continued good fortune was always suspect; the interrupted kind is safer, and one with something bittersweet about it, even for the enjoyment. The more good fortunes crowd on one another, the greater their risk of slipping and wrecking everything. Sometimes the shortness of the duration is made up for by the intensity of the favor. Fortune tires of carrying one man on her back for so long.
39 Know things at their point, in their season, and know how to make the most of them. The works of nature all reach the fullness of their perfection; up to that point they were gaining, from then on losing. Of the works of art, few reach the point where they cannot be improved. It is the eminence of good taste to enjoy each thing at its fullness: not everyone can, and not all who can know how. Even the fruits of the understanding have this point of ripeness; it matters to know it, for esteeming them and for using them.
40 The goodwill of people. It is much to win common admiration, but more to win affection; it has something of one’s star about it, and most of it is industry; it begins with the star and goes on with industry. Eminence of gifts is not enough, though it is supposed that once good opinion is won, affection is easy to win. Benevolence, then, requires beneficence: doing good with both hands, good words and better deeds, loving in order to be loved. Courtesy is the greatest political spell of great personages. One must reach first for exploits and then for pens, from the blade to the leaf, for there is a goodwill of writers, and it is eternal.
41 Never exaggerate. A great concern of attention: not to speak in superlatives, both so as not to risk offending the truth and so as not to tarnish one’s good sense. Exaggerations are squanderings of esteem, and betray the narrowness of one’s knowledge and taste. Praise vividly awakens curiosity and pricks desire, and afterward, if the worth does not match the appraisal, as usually happens, expectation turns against the deceit and takes its revenge in contempt for the thing celebrated and for the one who celebrated it. The sensible man therefore goes very carefully, and would rather err by falling short than by going too far. Eminences are rare: let esteem be tempered. Overpraising is a branch of lying, and with it one loses the credit of good taste, which is great, and that of understanding, which is greater.
42 Natural authority. It is a secret force of superiority. It must not come from tiresome artifice but from a commanding nature. Everyone submits to it without noticing how, recognizing the secret vigor of inborn authority. These are lordly temperaments, kings by merit and lions by innate privilege, who capture the hearts, and even the minds, of others through the respect they inspire. If their other gifts are favorable, they were born to be the prime movers of the state, for they accomplish more with a gesture than others with long effort.
43 Think with the few and speak with the many. Going against the current is as impossible a way to undeceive as it is an easy way into danger. Only a Socrates could undertake it. Dissent is taken as an affront, because it condemns another’s judgment. The offended multiply, on account of the thing censured and on account of whoever applauded it. Truth belongs to the few; deception is as common as it is vulgar. Nor is the wise man to be known by what he says in the public square, for there he speaks not with his own voice but with that of common folly, however much his inner self may be belying it. The sensible man avoids being contradicted as much as contradicting: what he is quick to censure he is slow to make public. Thought is free; it cannot and must not be forced. It withdraws into the sanctuary of its silence, and if it sometimes allows itself out, it is in the shade of a few sensible people.
44 Sympathy with great men. It is the gift of a hero to accord with heroes: a marvel of nature for its secrecy and its advantage. There is a kinship of hearts and of temperaments, and its effects are what vulgar ignorance blames on potions. It does not stop at esteem; it goes on to benevolence, and even reaches inclination: it persuades without words and obtains without merits. There is an active kind and a passive kind; both are happy, and the more so the more sublime. It is a great skill to know them, distinguish them, and know how to profit from them, for no persistence is enough without this secret favor.
45 Use reflection, do not abuse it. It must not be affected, still less let on. All art must be concealed, for it is suspect, and above all the art of caution, which is odious. Deceit is much in use; let wariness be redoubled, but without making itself known, for that would breed distrust: it greatly disobliges and provokes revenge, and awakens an evil no one had imagined. Reflection in one’s conduct is a great advantage in action: there is no greater proof of a reasoning mind. The greatest perfection of actions is secured by the mastery with which they are performed.
46 Correct one’s antipathy. We are apt to hate readily, and even before we have seen a man’s gifts. And sometimes this innate, vulgarizing aversion dares to attack eminent men. Let good sense correct it, for there is no worse discredit than to hate the best: as sympathy with heroes is an advantage, so antipathy to them is a blemish.
47 Avoid entanglements. It is among the first concerns of prudence. Great capacities always keep a long way from the last extremities: there is a long road from one extreme to the other, and they always stay in the middle of their good sense; they come late to the breach, for it is easier to dodge the occasion than to come out of it well. These are temptations of judgment, safer fled than overcome. One entanglement brings on a greater, and it stands at the very edge of the precipice. There are men quarrelsome by temperament, and even by nation, quick to take on obligations; but whoever walks by the light of reason always stays well above the matter: he considers it greater courage not to get entangled than to win, and when there is already one quarrelsome fool, he takes care that there should not be two.
48 A man with depths: so much the more a person. The inside must always be as much again as the outside, in everything. There are people who are all façade, like houses left unfinished because the capital ran out: they have the entrance of a palace and the rooms of a hut. In these there is nowhere to stop, or everything stops, because when the first greeting is over, the conversation is over. They enter upon the first courtesies like Sicilian horses, and then stop dead, struck dumb, for words run dry where thought does not flow perennially. These easily deceive others, whose sight is also superficial, but not cunning, which looks within and finds them hollow, to be a byword among the discerning.
49 A man of judgment and observation. He masters objects, not objects him. He sounds at once the bottom of the greatest depth; he knows how to make a perfect anatomy of a man’s capital. On seeing a personage, he grasps him and judges him in his essence. Of rare observations, a great decipherer of the most guarded inner life. He notes sharply, conceives subtly, infers judiciously: he discovers, notices, reaches, and comprehends everything.
50 Never lose respect for oneself. Nor take liberties with oneself when alone. Let a man’s own integrity be the rule of his uprightness, and let him owe more to the severity of his own verdict than to all outside precepts. Let him refrain from what is unseemly more out of fear of his own good sense than out of the rigor of others’ authority. Let him come to fear himself, and he will not need Seneca’s imaginary tutor.12
51 A man of good choice. Most of life is lived by it. It presupposes good taste and the soundest verdict, for study and wit are not enough. There is no perfection where there is no selection; it includes two advantages: being able to choose, and to choose the best. Many of fertile and subtle wit, of sharp judgment, studious and well informed besides, are lost when it comes to choosing; they always marry the worst, as if they made a point of erring, and so this is one of the greatest gifts from above.
52 Never lose one’s composure. A great concern of good sense, never to be thrown into disorder: it argues much of a man, a crowned heart, for all magnanimity is hard to stir. The passions are the humors of the spirit, and any excess in them sickens good sense; and if the ailment comes out at the mouth, reputation will be in danger. Let a man, then, be so much his own master, and so great, that neither in the greatest prosperity nor in the greatest adversity can anyone censure him as disturbed, but rather admire him as above it all.
53 Diligent and intelligent. Diligence quickly carries out what intelligence slowly thinks through. Haste is the passion of fools, who, not seeing the obstacle, act without caution. The wise, on the contrary, usually err by delay, for from noticing comes hesitation. Sometimes the ineffectiveness of slackness ruins the rightness of the verdict. Promptness is the mother of good fortune. He did much who left nothing for tomorrow. An august device: make haste slowly.13
54 Have mettle, with good sense. Even hares pull the beard of a dead lion. There is no trifling with courage: if a man yields to the first, he will have to yield to the second as well, and so on to the last. The same difficulty will have to be overcome late that would have been better overcome at once. The mettle of the spirit exceeds that of the body: it is like the sword, and must always go sheathed in good sense, ready for the occasion. It is the safeguard of the person: weakness of spirit does more harm than weakness of body. Many had eminent gifts who, for lack of this breath of the heart, seemed dead and ended up buried in their own listlessness; for not without providence did careful nature join in the bee the sweetness of honey with the sharpness of the sting. There are sinews and bones in the body: let the spirit not be all softness.
55 A man who can wait. It argues a great heart, with breadth of patience. Never hurry, never be carried away by passion. Let a man first be master of himself, and he will be master of others afterward. One must travel through the spaces of time to the center of opportunity. Prudent delay seasons success and ripens secrets. The crutch of time does more work than the steel club of Hercules. God himself chastises not with the rod but with the season.14 A great saying: “Time and I against any two.”15 Fortune herself rewards waiting with the greatness of the prize.
56 Have good sallies. They are born of a happy promptness. For it there are no tight spots or accidents, thanks to its liveliness and ease. Some think a great deal only to get everything wrong afterward, and others get everything right without thinking beforehand. There are capacities of antiperistasis,16 which work better when hard pressed: they are usually prodigies who get everything right on the spur of the moment and everything wrong on reflection; what does not occur to them at once never does, and there is no appeal to later. The quick are applauded, because they argue a prodigious capacity: in conceptions, subtlety; in deeds, good sense.
57 The well considered are safer. Soon enough, if well enough. What is done at once is undone at once; but what is to last an eternity must take another to be made. Nothing is attended to but perfection, and only success endures. An understanding with depths achieves eternities. What is worth much costs much, for even the most precious of metals is the slowest and the heaviest.
58 Know how to temper oneself. One should not show oneself equally knowing with everyone, nor use more strength than is needed. Let there be no waste, either of knowledge or of worth. The good falconer does not fly more hawks at the prey than he needs to take it. Let a man not always be on display, for tomorrow he will no longer astonish. There must always be something new to shine with, for whoever reveals more every day keeps expectation always alive, and the limits of his great capital are never discovered.
59 A man who leaves a good taste. In the house of Fortune, whoever enters by the door of pleasure leaves by the door of sorrow, and the other way round. Attention, then, to the end, taking more care over the happiness of the exit than over the applause of the entrance. It is the common slight of the fortunate to have very favorable beginnings and very tragic endings. The point lies not in the vulgar applause of an entrance, for everyone’s entrance is applauded, but in the general regret at an exit, for few are missed. Good fortune seldom sees out those who leave: as obliging as she shows herself to those who come, so discourteous is she to those who go.
60 Sound verdicts. Some are born prudent: they come into wisdom with this advantage of inborn synderesis, and so they have half the road to success already traveled. With age and experience reason comes to its full season, and they arrive at a well-tempered judgment. They abhor every caprice as a temptation to good sense, especially in matters of state, where the supreme importance demands complete security. Such men deserve a place at the helm, either to steer or to advise.
61 Eminence in what is best. A great singularity amid the plurality of perfections. There can be no hero without some sublime extreme: mediocrities are no subject for applause. Eminence in an important post lifts a man out of the vulgar run and raises him to the rank of the rare. To be eminent in a humble profession is to be something in little; what has more of the delightful has less of the glorious. Excellence in superior matters is like a stamp of sovereignty: it calls forth admiration and wins affection.
62 Work with good instruments. Some would have the height of their subtlety shine in the baseness of their instruments: a dangerous satisfaction, deserving a fatal punishment. The goodness of the minister never diminished the greatness of the master; rather, all the glory of success afterward falls on the principal cause, as does blame in the opposite case. Fame always goes with the first. It never says, “He had good ministers,” or bad ones, but, “He was a good craftsman,” or a bad one. Let there be choice, then, let there be scrutiny, for an immortality of reputation must be entrusted to them.
63 The excellence of being first. And with eminence, doubled. It is a great advantage to have the lead, for it wins when the hands are equal. Many would have been phoenixes in their posts if others had not gone before them. The first carry off the entail of fame, and the second are left a contested allowance; however much they sweat, they cannot purge the vulgar stain of imitation. It was the subtlety of prodigies to invent a new course for eminence, provided good sense first secures the venture. By the novelty of their subjects the wise have made a place for themselves on the roll of heroes. Some would rather be first in the second rank than second in the first.
64 Know how to spare oneself sorrows. It is profitable good sense to avoid vexations. Prudence avoids many: she is the Lucina of happiness,17 and therefore of contentment. Hateful news: do not give it, still less receive it; its entrance must be barred, unless it is the entrance of the remedy. Some have their ears worn out by hearing much sweetness in flattery; others, by hearing bitterness in gossip; and there are those who cannot live without some daily vexation, any more than Mithridates could without poison.18 Nor is it a rule of self-preservation to give oneself a lifelong sorrow so as to give another pleasure once, even one’s nearest. One must never sin against one’s own happiness to please the man who gives advice and then stays outside; and in every case, whenever pleasing another runs up against grieving oneself, it is a lesson of self-interest that it is better for the other to be displeased now than for you to be displeased later and past remedy.
65 Exalted taste. It admits of cultivation, as wit does. The excellence of understanding heightens the appetite of desire, and then the enjoyment of possession. The height of a man’s capital is known by the elevation of his affections. A great capacity needs much matter to satisfy it; as great mouthfuls are for great palates, so sublime matters are for sublime temperaments. The bravest objects fear it, and the surest perfections lose confidence; those of the first magnitude are few: let appreciation be rare. Tastes are caught through dealings and inherited by continued contact: it is great luck to associate with someone whose taste is at its peak. But one must not make a profession of being displeased with everything, which is one of the foolish extremes, and more odious when it comes from affectation than from intemperance. Some would like God to create another world and other perfections to satisfy their extravagant fancy.
66 Take care that things turn out well. Some pay more attention to the rigor of the method than to the happiness of achieving the aim, but the discredit of failure always weighs more than the credit of diligence. The man who wins need give no explanations. Most people do not perceive the exactness of the circumstances, only the good or bad outcomes; and so reputation is never lost when the aim is achieved. A good end gilds everything, though the blunders of the means may belie it. For it is an art to go against art when there is no other way to achieve the good fortune of coming out well.
67 Prefer posts that win applause. Most things depend on the satisfaction of others. Esteem is to perfections what the west wind is to flowers: breath and life. There are posts exposed to universal acclaim, and there are others, though greater, that no one watches; the former, being carried out in sight of everyone, capture common benevolence; the latter, though they have more of the rare and the exquisite, remain in the secrecy of their imperceptibility: venerated, but not applauded. Among princes, the victorious are the celebrated, and that is why the kings of Aragon were so applauded, as warriors, conquerors, and magnanimous men. Let the great man prefer the celebrated posts that all can see and all share in, and let him be immortalized by common suffrage.
68 Lend understanding. It is a finer thing than lending memory, by as much as understanding is more than memory. At times one must remind, at other times point out. Some fail to do things that would be just right, because they do not occur to them; then let friendly advice help them see where their advantage lies. One of the greatest gifts of the mind is that what matters occurs to it. For lack of this, many successes go undone. Let him who has the light give it, and him who begs for it ask: the one with restraint, the other with attention; let it be no more than giving a cue. This subtlety is urgent when it touches the interest of the one who does the waking. One should show willingness, and go further when that is not enough; the No is already in hand; let one go after the Yes with skill, for most of the time it is not obtained because it is not attempted.
69 Do not yield to a vulgar humor. A great man is he who never submits to stray impressions. Reflection on oneself is a lesson in foresight: knowing one’s present disposition and forestalling it, and even leaning to the other extreme so as to find, between nature and art, the balance point of synderesis. To know oneself is the beginning of correcting oneself; for there are monsters of absurdity: they are always in some humor or other and change their feelings with it; and dragged forever by this mean intemperance, they commit themselves to contradictory things. And this excess not only wears out the will but even dares to attack the judgment, upsetting both will and understanding.
70 Know how to refuse. Not everything is to be granted, nor to everyone. It matters as much as knowing how to grant, and in those who command it is an urgent concern. Here manner comes in: some people’s no is esteemed more than other people’s yes, for a gilded no satisfies more than a bare yes. There are many who always have no on their lips, and with it they make everything taste sour. With them no always comes first, and though afterward they end up granting everything, it is not appreciated, because that first sourness came before. Things are not to be refused point-blank: let the undeceiving go down in sips; nor is one to refuse entirely, for that would be to give up dependence for dead. Let some remnants of hope always remain to temper the bitterness of refusal. Let courtesy fill the void left by the favor, and good words make up for the lack of deeds. No and Yes are short to say and ask for much thought.
71 Do not be uneven, irregular in conduct: neither by nature nor by affectation. The sensible man was always the same in all that is perfect, which earns him the credit of understanding. Let his changes depend on those of causes and merits. In matters of good sense, variety is ugly. There are some who are different from themselves every day; even their understanding is uneven, how much more their will, and even their luck. The man who yesterday was the white of their yes is today the black of their no, and they are forever belying their own credit and confusing others’ notion of them.
72 A man of resolution. Bad execution does less harm than irresolution. Matters wear out less when they flow than when they stagnate. There are men who cannot decide, who need someone else’s prompting in everything; and sometimes this arises not so much from perplexity of judgment, for theirs is keen, as from ineffectiveness. Finding difficulties is usually ingenious, but finding a way out of them is more so. There are others who are hampered by nothing, of great and decided judgment; they were born for sublime posts, because their unclouded grasp makes success and dispatch easy: they find everything done for them, for after settling the affairs of one world, one of these had time left over for another; and when they are sure of their good fortune, they commit themselves with greater security.
73 Know how to use evasion. It is how the sensible get out of trouble. With the gallantry of a witticism they often find their way out of the most tangled labyrinth. With a smile they gracefully dodge the most difficult contest. On this the greatest of great captains founded his courage. A courteous trick of refusal: change the subject; and there is no greater attention than to appear not to understand.
74 Do not be unapproachable. The true wild beasts are in the most populated places. Inaccessibility is the vice of those who do not know themselves, who change their humors with their honors. Starting by annoying people is no fit way to esteem. What is it like to see one of these intractable monsters, always poised in his absurd ferocity? Those who depend on them go in to speak to them, to their misfortune, as if to fight with tigers, armed with tact as much as with fear. To rise to the post they pleased everyone, and once in it they want to get even by annoying everyone. Though their office would have them belong to many, they belong to no one, from harshness or haughtiness. A courtly punishment for these: leave them alone, and deprive them of good sense by depriving them of company.
75 Choose a heroic ideal. More for emulation than for imitation. There are exemplars of greatness, living texts of reputation. Let each man set before himself the first in his own post, not so much to follow them as to get ahead of them. Alexander wept not for Achilles in his tomb but for himself, not yet properly born to glory.19 Nothing so stirs ambition in the spirit as the trumpet of another’s fame: the very thing that lays envy low gives heart to nobility of mind.
Notes
1. The Seven Sages of ancient Greece, among them Thales and Solon.
2. In Virgil’s Aeneid (book 4), Fama, or Rumor, is the youngest sister of the giants Coeus and Enceladus, born of Earth in her anger at the gods.
3. Python, the serpent of Delphi, was killed by Apollo’s arrows. Gracián sets Python’s calidez (craft) against Apollo’s candidez (candor).
4. Tigranes II, king of Armenia (first century BC), who according to Plutarch had captive kings wait on him.
5. The Roman goddess of wisdom and the arts. Gracián uses her name for natural talent.
6. The seven liberal arts of the medieval schools: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Liberal also means “generous.”
7. Suetonius reports that Caesar, embarrassed by his baldness, welcomed the senate’s grant of the right to wear a laurel wreath at all times.
8. A scholastic term for the inborn power of the mind to discern right from wrong.
9. The ancients believed that the chameleon lived on air.
10. An old saying held that by forty a man should be his own physician. Tacitus (Annals, book 6) reports that Tiberius mocked those who after thirty still needed others to tell them what was good or bad for their bodies.
11. Spanish varillas, little rods: remarks let fall in passing to sound out another or to wound him.
12. Seneca advised choosing some good man and keeping him always in mind as a watcher of one’s conduct (Letters to Lucilius 11).
13. “Make haste slowly” (festina lente) was a favorite saying of Augustus (Suetonius, Augustus 25). Gracián’s augusta plays on the name.
14. The Spanish rhymes bastón (stick) with sazón (season, the right moment).
15. A saying attributed to Philip II of Spain (1527–1598).
16. A term of the old natural philosophy: a quality grows stronger when surrounded by its opposite.
17. The Roman goddess of childbirth, a title also given to Juno.
18. Mithridates VI, king of Pontus (first century BC), who out of fear of poisoning hardened his body by taking small doses of poison every day.
19. At the tomb of Achilles at Troy, Alexander called him fortunate to have had a true friend in life and Homer to proclaim him after death (Plutarch, Life of Alexander 15).