Aphorisms 226–300
226 Take care to oblige. Most people speak and act not as who they are but as others oblige them to. Anyone at all is enough to persuade others of evil, because evil is readily believed, even when it is sometimes unbelievable. Most of what we have, and the best of it, depends on the regard of others. Some are content to have reason on their side; but that is not enough, for it must be helped along with diligence. Obliging sometimes costs very little and is worth much. Deeds are bought with words. There is no furnishing so mean in this great house of the universe that it will not be needed once a year; and though it may be worth little, it will be sorely missed. Each speaks of a thing according to his feeling.
227 Do not be a man of first impressions. Some marry the first report, so that the others become concubines, and as falsehood always gets ahead, no room is left afterward for truth. Neither the will with the first object nor the understanding with the first proposition should be filled, for that is shallowness. Some have the capacity of a new vessel, which the first smell takes over, whether of bad liquor or of good. When this shallowness becomes known, it is pernicious, for it gives a foothold to malicious industry. The ill-intentioned hurry to dye credulity with their color. Let there always be room for review: let Alexander keep the other ear for the other party.1 Let there be room for a second and a third report. Being impressionable argues incapacity, and is close to being swayed by passion.
228 Do not get a name as an evil tongue. Much less have such a character, which is to be famous for unmaking others’ fame. Let a man not be witty at another’s expense, which is more odious than difficult. Everyone takes revenge on him by speaking ill of him; and since he is one and they are many, he will sooner be vanquished than they convinced. The bad must never content, nor be commented on. The backbiter is forever hated, and though great personages sometimes have dealings with him, it will be more for the pleasure of his mockery than out of esteem for his good sense. And he who speaks ill always hears worse.
229 Know how to divide one’s life discerningly, not as occasions come but by foresight and choice. It is painful without rests, like a long journey without inns. Learned variety makes it happy. Let the first stage of fine living be spent in talking with the dead: we are born to know and to know ourselves, and books faithfully make us persons. Let the second stage be spent with the living: to see and take note of all the good in the world; not all things are found in one country; the universal Father divided his gifts, and sometimes endowed the ugliest land most richly. Let the third stage be wholly for oneself: the final happiness, philosophizing.
230 Open one’s eyes in time. Not all who see have opened their eyes, nor do all who look see. Realizing too late serves not as a remedy but as a grief. Some begin to see when there is nothing left to see: they undid their houses and their affairs before they had made themselves. It is difficult to give understanding to one who has no will, and harder to give will to one who has no understanding. Those around them play with them as with the blind, to the laughter of others. And because they are deaf to hearing, they do not open their eyes to see. But there is no lack of those who foster this insensibility, whose very being depends on the others’ not being. Unhappy the horse whose master has no eyes: it will hardly grow fat.
231 Never let things be seen half done. Let them be enjoyed in their perfection. All beginnings are shapeless, and the image of that deformity stays on afterward: the memory of having seen a thing imperfect keeps one from enjoying it finished. To take in a great object at a single stroke, though it hinders judgment of the parts, of itself satisfies taste. Before a thing is everything, it is nothing, and when it begins to be, it is still deep in its nothingness. Watching the most exquisite dish being cooked arouses disgust rather than appetite. Let every great master, then, take care not to let his works be seen in embryo. Let him learn from nature not to expose them until they are fit to be seen.
232 Have a touch of the man of business. Let not everything be speculation; let there be action too. The very wise are easy to deceive, because though they know the extraordinary, they do not know the ordinary things of life, which are more needed. Contemplation of sublime things leaves them no room for practical ones; and since they do not know the first things they should know, which everyone knows to a hair, they are either wondered at or taken for ignorant by the superficial crowd. Let the wise man, then, try to have something of the man of business, enough not to be deceived, or even laughed at. Let him be a man of the practicable, which, though not the highest thing, is what life most needs. What use is knowledge if it is not practical? And knowing how to live is today the true knowledge.
233 Do not miss the mark of another’s taste, which is to give pain instead of pleasure. With what some think will oblige, they annoy, for not grasping temperaments. There are acts that are flattery to some and offense to others; and what was thought a service was an affront. It has sometimes cost more to displease than it would have cost to please. They lose both the gratitude and the gift because they lost the compass of pleasing. If another’s temperament is not known, it can hardly be satisfied; hence some thought they were speaking a eulogy and spoke an insult, which was a well-deserved punishment. Others think they are entertaining with their eloquence and batter the soul with their loquacity.
234 Never entrust one’s reputation without pledges of another’s honor. Both must share in the profit of silence and in the harm of loose talk. In matters of honor, dealings should always be a partnership, so that one’s own reputation makes one care for the other’s. One should never entrust it, but if one ever does, let it be with such art that prudence can give way to caution. Let the risk be common and the cause reciprocal, so that the one who knows himself a partner will not turn into a witness.
235 Know how to ask. Nothing is more difficult for some, nor easier for others. There are some who do not know how to refuse; with them no picklock is needed. There are others whose first word at all hours is No; with them industry is needed. And with all of them, the right moment: catching their spirits cheerful, after a good meal either for the body or for the mind. Unless the attention of a wary listener sees through the subtlety of the one making the attempt, days of joy are days of favor, which overflows from within to without. One must not approach when one sees another refused, for the fear of saying No has then been lost. After sadness there is no good throw. Obliging in advance is a bill of exchange, unless baseness will not honor it.
236 Make an obligation beforehand of what would otherwise be a reward afterward. It is the skill of great statesmen. Favors before merits are the test of men who feel obligation. A favor granted in advance has two eminences: by the promptness of the giver it obliges the receiver the more. The same gift that afterward is a debt is beforehand a pledge. A subtle way of transforming obligations: the obligation that would have lain with the superior, to reward, falls on the one obliged, to repay. This applies to people who feel obligation, for with base men it would be putting on a bridle rather than a spur, paying the wages of honor in advance.
237 Never share secrets with superiors. A man will think he is sharing pears and will share stones.2 Many have perished of being confidants. They are like a spoon made of bread, which runs the same risk afterward. Being made his confidant is no favor from the prince, but a tax. Many break the mirror because it reminds them of their ugliness. He cannot bear to see the man who could see him, nor is the one who saw ill well seen. No one should be kept too much obliged, and the powerful least of all. Let it be rather by benefits done than by favors received. Above all, confidences of friendship are dangerous. He who communicated his secrets to another made himself that man’s slave, and in sovereigns that is a violence that cannot last. They long to redeem their lost freedom, and for this they will trample everything, even reason. Secrets, then: neither hear them nor tell them.
238 Know the piece one lacks. Many would be very much persons if they did not lack something, without which they never reach the height of perfect being. It is noticed in some that they could be much if they attended to very little. Some lack seriousness, and so tarnish great gifts; others, gentleness of disposition, a lack their intimates are quick to feel, especially in persons of rank. In some, executive force is wanted; in others, self-control. All these shortcomings, if noticed, could easily be made good, for care can make habit a second nature.
239 Do not be oversubtle: it matters more to be prudent. Knowing more than is fitting is blunting one’s point, for subtleties commonly break. Settled truth is safer. It is good to have understanding, but not smart chatter. Much reasoning is a branch of quarreling. Better a sound, substantial judgment that does not reason more than matters.
240 Know how to use folly. The wisest man sometimes plays this card, and there are occasions when the best knowledge lies in showing no knowledge. One must not be ignorant, but one may affect ignorance. With fools it matters little to be wise, and with madmen to be sensible: one must speak to each in his own language. The fool is not the one who affects folly but the one who suffers from it. Simple folly is folly, not the double kind, for artifice reaches even this far. To be well liked, the only means is to put on the skin of the simplest of beasts.
241 Bear jests, but do not make them. Bearing them is a kind of gallantry; making them, a road to entanglement. He who loses his temper at a festivity has much of the beast in him, and shows more. A jest is pleasant; knowing how to bear it argues capacity. The man who bristles gives others the cue to needle him. Jests should be dropped while they are at their best, and the safest thing is not to start them: the greatest earnest was always born of jest. Nothing calls for more attention and skill. Before starting, one must know how far the temperament of the person can go in bearing them.
242 Follow through. With some, everything goes into beginning, and they finish nothing. They invent, but do not pursue: instability of temperament. They never earn praise, because they carry nothing through; everything stops at stopping. In others, though, it comes from impatience of spirit, a failing of Spaniards, just as patience is the advantage of the Flemings.3 The Flemings finish things; the Spaniards finish with them: they sweat until the difficulty is overcome and are content with overcoming it; they do not know how to carry the victory through; they prove that they can, but they will not. Yet it is always a defect, of incapacity or of levity. If the work is good, why is it not finished? And if bad, why was it begun? Let the shrewd man, then, kill his quarry, and not spend everything on flushing it.
243 Do not be all dove. Let the craft of the serpent alternate with the candor of the dove.4 Nothing is easier than to deceive a decent man. He who never lies believes much, and he who never deceives trusts much. Being deceived does not always come from folly; sometimes it comes from goodness. Two kinds of people are very good at forestalling harm: those who have learned from experience, very much at their own cost, and the cunning, very much at others’. Let shrewdness be as extreme in suspicion as cunning is in intrigue, and let no one want to be so much a good man that he gives the other occasion to be a bad one. Let a man be a mixture of dove and serpent; not a monster, but a prodigy.
244 Know how to oblige. Some turn their own favor into another’s, and it seems, or they let it be understood, that they are doing a favor when they receive one. There are men so shrewd that they honor by asking, and turn their own profit into the other’s honor. They arrange things in such a way that it seems the others are doing them a service in giving to them, inverting the order of obligation with an extravagant policy. At the least they make it doubtful who is doing whom a favor. They buy the best at the price of praise, and out of showing pleasure in a thing they make honor and flattery. They put courtesy in pawn, making a debt of what should have been their gratitude. In this way they turn obligation from passive to active, better politicians than grammarians. A great subtlety this, but it would be a greater one to see through it, undoing the folly, giving them back their honor, and each recovering his own profit.
245 Reason sometimes in a singular way, outside the common. It argues superiority of capital. One should not esteem the man who never opposes one, for it is a sign not of the love he has for one but of the love he has for himself. Let a man not be fooled by flattery into paying for it, but condemn it. Let him also count it to his credit to be murmured against by some, especially by those who speak ill of all good people. Let it grieve him that his things please everyone, for that is a sign they are not good, since the perfect belongs to few.
246 Never give satisfaction to one who did not ask for it. And even if it is asked for, it is a kind of offense if it is excessive. To excuse oneself before there is occasion is to accuse oneself, and to be bled in health is to wink at illness, and at malice. An anticipated excuse awakens the suspicion that was sleeping. Nor should the sensible man show that he is aware of another’s suspicion, which is going out to look for offense. At such times he must try to belie it with the integrity of his conduct.
247 Know a little more, and live a little less. Others reason the opposite way. Good leisure is worth more than business. We have nothing of our own but time. Where does he live who has no room for living? It is equal misfortune to spend precious life on mechanical tasks and on too many sublime ones; one should not load oneself with occupations, nor with envy: that is trampling on living and stifling the spirit. Some extend this to knowledge, but one does not live without knowing.
248 Do not be carried off by the last to speak. There are men of the last report, for absurdity runs to extremes. Their feeling and their will are made of wax. The last one seals and erases all the others. These are never won, because they are lost with the same ease. Each dyes them his own color. They are bad as confidants, children all their lives; and so, with variety in their judgments and feelings, they go fluctuating, always lame of will and of judgment, leaning now to one side and now to the other.
249 Do not begin living where one should end. Some take their rest at the beginning and leave toil for the end. The essential must come first, and afterward, if room is left, the accessory. Others want to triumph before fighting. Some begin learning with what matters least, and leave the studies that bring credit and use for when life is running out. Another has not yet begun to make his fortune when he is already giddy with it. Method is essential for knowing how to live and being able to.
250 When must one reason backward? When we are spoken to with malice. With some, everything must go by contraries. Yes is No, and No is Yes. Speaking ill of a thing is taken as esteem of it, for whoever wants it for himself discredits it to others. Not all praising is speaking well, for some, so as not to praise the good, praise the bad as well; and for one to whom no one is bad, no one will be good.
251 Human means must be sought as if there were no divine ones, and divine means as if there were no human ones. The rule of a great master;5 no commentary need be added.
252 Neither all one’s own nor all another’s: that is a vulgar tyranny. From wanting oneself all for oneself follows at once wanting all things for oneself. Such men cannot yield in the slightest thing, nor lose a point of their comfort. They oblige little, trust in their fortune, and their prop usually gives way. It is sometimes well to belong to others so that others may belong to one, and whoever holds a public office must be a public slave, or “give up the post along with its burden,” as the old woman will say to Hadrian.6 Others, on the contrary, are all other people’s, for folly always goes to excess, and here an unhappy one: they have no day, not even an hour, of their own, belonging so excessively to others that one of them was called “Everybody’s.” Even in the understanding: they know for everyone and are ignorant for themselves. Let the attentive man understand that no one seeks him, but their own interest in him, or through him.
253 Do not make one’s thought too plain. Most people do not esteem what they understand, and what they do not perceive they venerate. Things must cost something to be esteemed. A man will be celebrated when he is not understood. One should always show oneself wiser and more prudent than the person one deals with requires for his idea of one, but in proportion rather than in excess. And though with people of understanding sense counts for much in everything, for most people loftiness is necessary. They must be given no room for censure, being kept busy understanding. Many praise what, when asked, they cannot give a reason for. Why? They venerate everything recondite as mystery and celebrate it because they hear it celebrated.
254 Do not despise an ill because it is small, for one never comes alone. They go linked together, as do good fortunes. Good luck and bad luck usually go where there is most of them; and the reason is that everyone flees the unlucky and draws near the fortunate. Even doves, for all their simplicity, flock to the whitest tower.7 Everything comes to fail an unlucky man: he fails himself, and reason and comfort fail him. Misfortune must not be awakened when it sleeps. A slip is a small thing, but that fatal fall follows, and no one knows where it will come to rest; for just as no good was ever entirely complete, so no ill was ever entirely finished. For the ill that comes from heaven, patience; for the one that comes from the earth, prudence.
255 Know how to do good: a little, and often. The commitment should never exceed the possibility. Whoever gives much does not give, but sells. Gratitude must not be pressed to the limit, for when it sees itself unable to repay, it will break off the correspondence. Nothing more is needed to lose many than to oblige them excessively. So as not to pay, they withdraw, and from being obliged they turn into enemies. The idol would never want to see before it the sculptor who carved it, nor the debtor his benefactor before his eyes. A great subtlety of giving: that it cost little and be much desired, so that it is esteemed the more.
256 Always go prepared against the discourteous, the obstinate, the presumptuous, and every kind of fool. One comes across many, and good sense lies in not crossing them. Let a man arm himself each day with resolutions before the mirror of his attention, and so he will overcome the assaults of folly. Let him be on top of the matter, and he will not expose his reputation to vulgar contingencies: a man forearmed with good sense will not be attacked by impertinence. The course of human dealings is difficult, being full of reefs of discredit; steering clear is the safe thing, consulting Ulysses on cunning. Artful evasion is worth much here. Above all, let him take the road of gallantry, which is the only short cut out of entanglements.
257 Never come to a rupture, for reputation always comes out of it with a broken head. Anyone will do for an enemy, not so for a friend. Few can do good, and almost all can do harm. The eagle does not nest safely even in Jupiter’s very bosom on the day it breaks with a beetle:8 the hidden enemies, who were waiting for their chance, make a cat’s paw of the declared one to stir up the fire. From friends gone bad come the worst enemies; they load the other with defects to cover their own in having been fond of him. Of those who look on, each speaks as he feels and feels as he wishes, all of them condemning both sides, at the beginning for lack of foresight or at the end for lack of patience, and always for lack of good sense. If the break is unavoidable, let it be excusable, rather by a cooling of favor than by a violence of fury. And here that saying about a fine retreat comes in well.
258 Find someone to help one bear misfortunes. Never be alone, least of all in dangers, for that would be loading oneself with all the hatred. Some think to make off with the whole superintendence, and they make off with all the murmuring. In this way a man will have someone to excuse him or to help him bear the ill. Neither fortune nor the vulgar dares so easily to attack two, and that is why the shrewd physician, having erred in the cure, does not err in finding someone who, under the title of a consultation, will help him carry the coffin: the weight and the woe are shared, for misfortune borne alone is doubled until it is intolerable.
259 Forestall injuries and make favors of them. It is greater shrewdness to avoid them than to avenge them. It is great skill to make a confidant of one who would have been a rival, to turn those who threatened one’s reputation with their shots into its defenses. Knowing how to oblige is worth much: he who has filled the time with gratitude leaves no time for offense. And it is knowing how to live to turn into pleasures what would have been sorrows. Make a confidant of malevolence itself.
260 Belong wholly to no one, and have no one wholly as one’s own. Neither blood, nor friendship, nor the most binding obligation is enough, for there is a great difference between handing over one’s heart and handing over one’s will. The closest union admits of exceptions, and the laws of devotion are not offended by it. A friend always keeps some secret for himself, and a son himself is guarded in something toward his father; some things are hidden from some people that are told to others, and the other way round, so that one comes to grant everything and deny everything, distinguishing the terms of each relation.
261 Do not persist in folly. Some make a commitment of their blunder, and because they began to err, they think it constancy to go on. In the court of conscience they accuse their error, and in the outer court they excuse it, so that if, when they began the folly, they were noted as careless, in persisting in it they are confirmed as fools. Neither a thoughtless promise nor a mistaken resolution creates an obligation. In this way some continue their first boorishness and carry their narrowness forward: they want to be steadfast in absurdity.
262 Know how to forget: it is more luck than art. The things most fit to be forgotten are the ones most remembered. Memory is not only churlish in failing when it was most needed, but foolish in coming when it should not: in what is to give pain it is long-winded, and in what should give pleasure it is careless. Sometimes the remedy of an ill lies in forgetting it, and it is the remedy that is forgotten. It is well, then, to train memory to such convenient habits, for it is enough to give happiness or hell. The self-satisfied are an exception, who in their state of innocence enjoy their simple happiness.
263 Many things that give pleasure should not be owned outright. They are enjoyed more as others’ than as one’s own. The first day is the good one for their owner, all the rest for strangers. Other people’s things are enjoyed with double enjoyment, that is, without the risk of loss and with the pleasure of novelty. Everything tastes better for being withheld: even another’s water passes for nectar. Owning things, besides lessening enjoyment, increases annoyance, both at lending them and at not lending them. It serves only to keep them for others, and more enemies are made than grateful friends.
264 Have no careless days. Luck likes to play a trick, and will override every contingency to catch a man unprepared. Wit, good sense, and courage must always be ready for trial; even beauty, for the day of its confidence will be the day of its discredit. Care was always lacking when it was most needed, for not thinking is the trip that brings one down. It is also often a stratagem of others’ attention to catch perfections off guard for the rigorous examination of appraisal. The days of display are already known, and cunning lets them pass; but the day least expected is the one it chooses to put one’s worth to the test.
265 Know how to put one’s dependents to the test. A commitment at the right time has made persons of many, just as the danger of drowning makes swimmers. In this way many discovered courage, and even knowledge, that would have stayed buried in their timidity if the occasion had not offered. Straits are occasions of reputation, and when the noble man is put in hazards of honor, he does the work of a thousand. The Catholic Queen Isabella9 knew this lesson of committing others eminently well, as she knew all the others; and to this politic favor the Great Captain10 owed his renown, and many others their eternal fame: she made great men by this subtlety.
266 Do not be bad from being too good. He is so who never gets angry: the insensible have little of the person about them. It does not always come from apathy, but from incapacity. A feeling shown at the right time is a personal act. Birds are quick to make fun of scarecrows. Alternating the sour with the sweet is proof of good taste: sweetness alone is for children and fools. It is a great ill to lose oneself by being too good, in this sense of insensibility.
267 Silken words, with gentleness of disposition. Arrows pierce the body, but bad words the soul. A sweet pastille makes the mouth smell good. It is a great subtlety of living to know how to sell air. Most things are paid for with words, and words are enough to get one out of an impossibility. Business is done in the air with air, and the breath of a sovereign gives much heart. One should always carry one’s mouth full of sugar to candy one’s words, and they taste good even to enemies. Being gentle is the only way to be lovable.
268 Let the sensible man do at the beginning what the fool does at the end. The one does the same as the other; they differ only in timing: the sensible man in season and the fool out of it. He who began by putting his understanding on like shoes on the wrong feet goes on that way in everything else: he drags underfoot what he should set upon his head; he makes his right hand his left, and so is left-handed in all his conduct. There is only one good moment for seeing the point. Fools do by force what they could have done willingly; but the discerning man sees at once what has to be done, sooner or later, and does it with pleasure and with reputation.
269 Make use of one’s novelty, for as long as one is new, one will be esteemed. Novelty pleases everyone, because of its variety; taste is refreshed, and a brand-new mediocrity is esteemed more than an accustomed excellence. Eminences wear with handling and come to grow old; and let a man be warned that this glory of novelty will last little: in four days they will lose their respect for him. Let him know, then, how to make use of these first fruits of esteem and draw from the fleeting moment of pleasing all that he could aim at; for once the heat of the new has passed, passion will cool, and the pleasure in the new will turn into annoyance at the accustomed; and let him believe that everything else, too, had its turn, and that it passed.
270 Do not condemn alone what pleases many. There is something good in it, since it satisfies so many; and though it cannot be explained, it is enjoyed. Singularity is always odious, and when it is mistaken, ridiculous; it will discredit one’s own poor opinion rather than the object, and one will be left alone with one’s bad taste. If one cannot find the good in it, let one hide one’s shortcoming and not condemn wholesale, for bad taste usually comes from ignorance. What everyone says either is so or wants to be.
271 Let the man who knows little always keep to what is safest. In every profession; for though he will not be thought subtle, he will be thought solid. He who knows can venture and act on fancy; but to know little and take risks is a voluntary precipice. Let him always keep to the right hand, for what is established cannot fail. For little knowledge, the king’s highway; and in any case, in knowing as in not knowing, safety is more sensible than singularity.
272 Sell things at the price of courtesy, for that obliges more. What the self-interested man asks will never come up to what a generous man gives when he feels obliged. Courtesy does not give, but pledges, and gallantry is the greatest obligation. Nothing is dearer to a decent man than what is given him: it is selling it twice, and at two prices, that of its worth and that of the courtesy. It is true, though, that to the base man gallantry is gibberish, for he does not understand the terms of good terms.
273 Comprehension of the temperaments one deals with, so as to know their intentions. Once the cause is well known, the effect is known, first in the cause and then in its motive. The melancholy man always forebodes misfortunes, and the slanderer faults: the worst always occurs to them, and not perceiving the present good, they announce the possible ill. The impassioned man always speaks a language different from what things are; passion speaks in him, not reason. And each one according to his feeling or his humor, and all of them very far from the truth. Let a man know how to decipher a face and spell out the soul in its signs. Let him take the man who always laughs for wanting, and the man who never laughs for false. Let him beware of the questioner, either as frivolous or as a spy. Let him expect little good from the man with an ill-favored face, for such men usually take revenge on nature, and as she honored them little, they honor her little. Folly is usually as great as beauty is.
274 Have the power to attract, which is a spell of politic courtesy. Let the gallant hook serve to draw wills rather than benefits, or both. Merits are not enough unless they make use of pleasantness, which is what wins applause, the most practical instrument of sovereignty. To catch people’s fancy is luck, but it is helped by artifice, for where there is a great natural endowment the artificial sits better. From this arises kindly affection, until it wins the goodwill of all.
275 Easygoing, but not unseemly. Not to be always on one’s dignity and tiresome is a branch of gallantry. One must yield something of decorum to win common affection. Sometimes one may go where most people go, but without unseemliness, for he who is taken for a fool in public will not be taken for sensible in private. More is lost in one day of merriment than was gained in all one’s seriousness. But one must not always be the exception: being singular is condemning others; still less affect prudery; let that be left to its own sex: even spiritual prudery is ridiculous. The best thing in a man is to look like one; for a woman can affect the manly to perfection, but not the other way round.
276 Know how to renew one’s temperament, by nature and by art. They say that one’s disposition changes every seven years: let it be to improve and heighten one’s taste. In the first seven, reason comes in; after that, with every five years, let a new perfection come in. Observe this natural variety in order to help it, and expect improvement in others as well. That is why many have changed their bearing, either with their station or with their post; and sometimes the extent of the change is not noticed until it is seen. At twenty a man will be a peacock; at thirty, a lion; at forty, a camel; at fifty, a serpent; at sixty, a dog; at seventy, a monkey; and at eighty, nothing.
277 A man of display. It is the shining of gifts. There is a moment for each: let it be seized, for not every day will be its day of triumph. There are dashing persons in whom a little shines much, and much shines to the point of wonder. When showiness joins eminence, it passes for a prodigy. There are showy nations, and the Spanish is so supremely. Light was the first shining forth of all creation. Display fills much, supplies much, and gives a second being to everything, especially when reality backs it. Heaven, which gives perfection, provides for display, for either alone would be forced. Art is needed in display: even what is very excellent depends on circumstances and does not always have its moment. Display went wrong when it lacked its season. No distinction calls for less affectation, and display always perishes of this flaw, for it is very close to vanity, and vanity to contempt. It must be well tempered so as not to become vulgar, and with the sensible its excess is somewhat discredited. It sometimes consists rather in a mute eloquence, in showing perfection carelessly; for wise dissimulation is the most applauded parade, because that very deprivation pricks curiosity to the quick. It is a great skill of display not to reveal all one’s perfection at once, but to let it be seen by degrees, as a card player edges his cards apart to peep at them, always advancing; let one distinction be the pledge of a greater, and the applause for the first a new expectation of the rest.
278 Avoid being conspicuous in everything. For once conspicuous, even one’s distinctions will be defects. This comes from singularity, which was always censured; the singular man is left alone. Even what is pretty, if it stands out, brings discredit; once it draws attention, it offends, and much more so singularities without credit. But some want to be known even for their vices, seeking novelty in baseness so as to achieve so infamous a fame. Even in intelligence, excess degenerates into smart chatter.
279 Do not answer contradiction. One must tell whether it comes from cunning or from vulgarity. It is not always obstinacy; sometimes it is artifice. Attention, then, not to be drawn into the one nor to fall headlong into the other. Care is nowhere better spent than against spies, and against the picklock of minds there is no better countertrick than to leave the key of reserve inside the lock.
280 A man of good faith. Good conduct is finished, obligations are belied, there are few good returns: for the best service, the worst reward, as is now the custom of all the world. There are whole nations inclined to ill treatment: from some, treachery is always to be feared; from others, inconstancy; and from others, deceit. Let the bad return of others serve, then, not for imitation but for caution. The risk is that integrity may come off its hinges at the sight of base conduct. But the man of good faith never forgets who he is because of what others are.
281 The goodwill of people of understanding. The lukewarm yes of a singular man is worth more than a whole common applause, for belches of chaff give no sustenance. The wise speak with the understanding, and so their praise causes an immortal satisfaction. The judicious Antigonus reduced the whole theater of his fame to Zeno alone,11 and Plato called Aristotle his whole school.12 Some care only to fill their stomachs, even if it is with vulgar rubbish. Even sovereigns need those who write, and they should fear their pens more than ugly women fear the painter’s brushes.
282 Use absence: either for respect or for esteem. If presence diminishes fame, absence increases it. The man who when absent was taken for a lion was, when present, the ridiculous offspring of the mountains.13 Gifts lose their luster with handling, because the rind of the outside is seen sooner than the great substance of the spirit. Imagination goes further than sight, and deception, which usually enters by the ear, comes to leave by the eyes. He who keeps himself at the center of the opinion held of him preserves his reputation; for even the phoenix makes use of retirement for its decorum, and of desire for its esteem.
283 A man of sensible inventiveness. It argues an excess of wit, but what wit will there be without its grain of madness?14 Invention belongs to the witty; good choice, to the prudent. It is also a gift of grace, and a rarer one, because many have managed to choose well, but few to invent well, and those the first both in excellence and in time. Novelty flatters, and if it is happy, it gives two distinctions to the good. In matters of judgment it is dangerous, because of the paradoxical; in matters of wit, praiseworthy; and if they succeed, both are applauded.
284 Do not be meddlesome, and one will not be slighted. Esteem oneself if one would be esteemed. Be miserly rather than lavish with oneself. Arrive wanted, and one will be well received. Never come unless called, nor go unless sent. He who takes a thing on of his own accord loads all the hatred on himself if it goes badly; and if it goes well, he gets no thanks. The meddler is a butt for contempt, and for the very reason that he thrusts himself in shamelessly, he is sent off in confusion.
285 Do not perish of another’s misfortune. Recognize the man who is in the mud, and note that he will call on one to make a consolation of shared misery. Such men look for someone to help them bear their misfortune, and those who turned their backs on a man in their prosperity now hold out their hands to him. Great care is needed with the drowning, so as to come to the rescue without danger.
286 Do not let oneself be wholly obliged, nor obliged to everyone, for that would be to be a slave, and a common one. Some were born luckier than others: the luckier to do good, the others to receive it. Freedom is more precious than the gift, for it is lost in the taking. Let a man prefer that many depend on him rather than that he depend on one. Command has no other advantage than being able to do more good. Above all, let him not take as a favor the obligation he gets into; most often another’s cunning will have contrived it to get ahead of him.
287 Never act in passion: everything will go wrong. Let no one act on his own who is beside himself, and passion always banishes reason. Let a prudent third party take his place then, and the third party will be prudent if he is free of passion: onlookers always see more than players, because they do not become impassioned. On recognizing that he is agitated, let good sense sound the retreat, so that his blood is not set fully on fire, for he will do everything bloodily, and in a short while will give matter for many days of confusion for himself and murmuring by others.
288 Live by the occasion. Governing, reasoning, everything must suit the case. Will when one can, for season and time wait for no one. Let a man not live by generalities, unless it is in favor of virtue, nor lay down fixed laws for his will, for tomorrow he will have to drink of the water he scorns today. There are some so paradoxically absurd that they would have all the circumstances of success fit their mania, and not the other way round. But the wise man knows that the north star of prudence lies in conducting oneself according to the occasion.
289 The greatest discredit of a man is to give signs that he is a man. People stop taking him for divine the day they see him very human. Frivolity is the greatest counterweight to reputation. Just as the reserved man is taken for more than a man, so the frivolous man is taken for less than a man. No vice discredits more, because frivolity is directly opposed to gravity. A frivolous man cannot be a man of substance, especially if he is old, when his age obliges him to good sense. And though this blemish is so common, that does not keep it from being singularly discrediting.
290 It is happiness to join esteem with affection, not being too much loved, so as to keep respect. Love is bolder than hatred; affection and veneration do not go well together; and yet one should be neither much feared nor much loved. Love brings in familiarity, and as familiarity comes in, esteem goes out. Let a man be loved with esteem rather than with fondness, which is a love very fitting for persons.
291 Know how to make trial. Let the attention of the judicious compete with the reserve of the guarded: great judgment is needed to measure another’s. It matters more to know the temperaments and properties of persons than those of herbs and stones. This is one of the subtlest acts of life: metals are known by their ring, and persons by their speech. Words show integrity, but deeds much more. Here are needed extraordinary care, deep observation, subtle notice, and judicious discernment.
292 Let one’s nature prevail over the obligations of one’s post, and not the other way round. However great the post, the person must show himself greater. A capital with room to spare goes on expanding and showing itself more with each post. A narrow heart is easily squeezed, and in the end its owner goes bankrupt in both obligation and reputation. The great Augustus prided himself on being a greater man than prince. Here loftiness of spirit counts, and sensible self-confidence even helps.
293 Maturity. It shines in the exterior, but more in one’s habits. Material weight makes gold precious, and moral weight the person. It is the decorum of gifts, inspiring veneration. A man’s composure is the façade of his soul. It is not foolishness with little movement, as levity would have it, but a very calm authority. It speaks in maxims and acts with success. It presupposes a well-formed man, for a man is as much a person as he is mature. On ceasing to be a child, he begins to be grave and authoritative.
294 Be moderate in one’s opinions. Each forms his notion according to his interest, and abounds in reasons for his view. In most people, the verdict yields to feeling. It happens that two meet in contradiction and each presumes that reason is on his side; but reason, being faithful, never knew how to wear two faces. Let the wise man proceed with reflection on so delicate a point; and so his misgiving about himself will reform his judgment of the other’s conduct. Let him sometimes put himself on the other side and examine his opponent’s motives from there. In this way he will neither condemn the other nor justify himself so blindly.
295 Not a boaster of exploits, but a doer of them. Those who have least cause play the grandee most. They make a mystery of everything, with the greatest frigidity: chameleons of applause,15 giving everyone surfeits of laughter. Vanity was always tiresome; here it is laughed at: the little ants of honor go begging for exploits. Let a man affect his greatest eminences less. Let him be content to do, and leave the telling to others. Let him give his exploits, not sell them; nor are golden pens to be hired to write mud, to the disgust of good sense. Let him aspire to be heroic rather than only to seem so.
296 A man of gifts, and majestic ones. First-rate gifts make first-rate men. A single one is worth a whole middling plurality. There was one who liked all his things to be great, even his everyday furnishings. How much more should the great man see that the gifts of his spirit are so! In God everything is infinite, everything immense; so in a hero everything must be great and majestic, so that all his actions, and even his words, go clothed in a transcendent, grandiose majesty.
297 Always act as if seen. That man is watchful who watches that he is watched, or will be. He knows that walls have ears and that what is ill done bursts to get out. Even when alone, he acts as if in sight of the whole world, for he knows that everything will be known; he already looks on those who will later be witnesses through report as witnesses now. The man who wished that the whole world could see him did not mind that he could be observed in his house from the houses of others.16
298 Three things make a prodigy, and they are the greatest gift of supreme liberality: a fecund wit, a profound judgment, and a taste remarkably jocund. It is a great advantage to conceive well, but a greater one to reason well, the mark of a good understanding. Wit should not lie in the backbone, for then it would be laborious rather than sharp. Thinking well is the fruit of rationality. At twenty the will reigns, at thirty wit, at forty judgment. There are understandings that throw out light, like the eyes of the lynx, and reason best in the greatest darkness; there are others made for the occasion, which always hit on what is most to the purpose. Much occurs to them, and well: a most happy fecundity. But good taste seasons all of life.
299 Leave people hungry. They must be left with the nectar still on their lips. Desire is the measure of esteem; even with bodily thirst it is a trick of good taste to whet it, not to quench it. The good, if little, twice good. The falling off the second time is great: surfeits of pleasure are dangerous, for they bring contempt on the most eternal eminence. The one rule of pleasing: to catch the appetite sharpened by the hunger it was left with. If it must be provoked, let it be rather by the impatience of desire than by weariness of enjoyment: a happiness that has been suffered for is enjoyed twice over.
300 In a word, a saint, which says everything at once. Virtue is the chain of all perfections, the center of all happiness. It makes a man prudent, attentive, shrewd, sensible, wise, courageous, self-controlled, upright, happy, applauded, true, and a universal hero. Three S’s make a man happy: saintly, sound, and sage. Virtue is the sun of the lesser world, and has a good conscience for its hemisphere; it is so beautiful that it wins grace with God and with men. Nothing is lovable but virtue, nothing hateful but vice. Virtue is a thing in earnest; all else is in jest. Capacity and greatness are to be measured by virtue, not by fortune. Virtue alone is sufficient to itself. While a man lives, it makes him lovable; and when he is dead, memorable.
Notes
1. Alexander was said to cover one ear with his hand when hearing an accusation, keeping it for the accused.
2. To “share pears” (partir peras) with someone is Spanish for being on easy, familiar terms. Gracián changes the pears (peras) to stones (piedras).
3. Spanish belgas: the people of the Low Countries, then ruled by the Spanish crown.
4. “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16).
5. Commonly given as a rule of Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), founder of the Jesuits.
6. An anecdote told by Cassius Dio. When a woman stopped Hadrian in the road with a petition, he said he had no time; she cried out, “Then stop being emperor,” and he turned back and heard her.
7. Ovid (Tristia 1.9): doves flock to white towers, and no bird roosts in a filthy one.
8. Aesop’s fable of the eagle and the beetle. The beetle, wronged by the eagle, kept rolling its eggs out of the nest; when the eagle laid them in Jupiter’s lap, the beetle dropped a ball of dung there, the god rose to shake it off, and the eggs fell and broke.
9. Isabella I of Castile (1451–1504), who with her husband, Ferdinand of Aragon, received from the pope the title of the Catholic Monarchs.
10. Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba (1453–1515), Isabella’s general, called el Gran Capitán.
11. Antigonus II Gonatas, king of Macedon (c. 320–239 BC), admired Zeno of Citium, founder of Stoicism, and went to hear him when he was in Athens.
12. The ancient lives report that Plato called Aristotle the “mind” of his school, and when he was absent said, “The mind is not here.”
13. From Horace, Ars poetica: the mountains labor, and a ridiculous mouse is born.
14. Seneca (On Tranquillity of Mind) quotes Aristotle: there has been no great genius without a touch of madness.
15. The ancients believed that the chameleon lived on air.
16. Probably Marcus Livius Drusus, the Roman tribune, who told an architect offering to build him a house no one could see into that he should rather build it so that everyone could see whatever he did (Velleius Paterculus, Roman History 2.14).