We completely agree with Arthur Schopenhauer saying that this book is “made for constant use and should be a companion for life.” With just 300 concise slogans and sayings, it provides a verbal roadmap to happiness, integrity, and success. Unsurprisingly similar to the older compilations of Aesop, Atisha, Erasmus, Sakya Pandita, and the Buddha’s Dharmapada; Gracian researched and compiled the wisdom sayings available in his time and place. Many of these same insights found their way into more modern and familiar works like Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard's Almanack.
“Let there be no unnecessary expenditure of either knowledge or power… too much display today and there will be nothing to show tomorrow.”
Chapters:
43. No Effort, No Trace
Comments: Click to comment
“[ in conversation ] Discretion is more important than eloquence.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“A beauty should break her mirror early, lest she do so later with open eyes.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“A friend is a second self... seek someone everyday who will wish you well.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“A noble nature always knows how to find an excuse for failings”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“A resolution declared is never highly thought of.”
Chapters:
56. One with the Dust
Comments: Click to comment
“A wise reserve seasons the aims and matures the means.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“affect ignorance... In everything the taste of the many carries the day... follow it in the hope of leading it to higher things.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“All fools are fully convinced and everyone fully convinced is a fool.”
Chapters:
65. Simplicity: the Hidden Power of Goodness
Comments: Click to comment
“All forms of one-sidedness are deformities of mind and lead to indulgencies of folly.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“All good activity in life depends on discretion, the highest virtue — that natural tendency toward the most rational and sure actions.”
Chapters:
54. Planting Well
Comments: Click to comment
“All success depends on timing. To turn out well, an endeavor must be done on its own day. At that time, seize the opportunity without hesitation.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“All victories breed hate, and that over your superior is foolish or fatal. Preeminence is always detested”
Chapters:
8. Like Water
Comments: Click to comment
“Always act as if others were watching… know that walls have ears and that ill deeds rebound back… know that sooner or later, all will be known.”
Chapters:
73. Heaven’s Net
Comments: Click to comment
“An ounce of wisdom is worth more than a ton of cleverness.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“As many sages speak through your mouth as were consulted beforehand.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Avoid the faults of your nation… There is not a nation among even the most civilized that has not some fault peculiar to itself…It is a triumph to correct in oneself such failings… There are also family failings as well as faults of position, of office, or of age.”
Chapters:
5. Christmas Trees
Comments: Click to comment
“Be extraordinary in your excellence but be ordinary in your display of it.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Be more careful not to miss once than to hit a hundred times… Evil news carries farther than any applause… All the exploits of a person taken together are not enough to wipe out a single small blemish.”
Chapters:
60. Less is More
Comments: Click to comment
“become necessary to your office instead of letting your office remain necessary to you”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Better to be cheated in the price rather than in the quality of goods. (chapter 157)”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Better to be first in something small than second in something great because the first move has a big advantage. Those who follow look like parrots.(#63)”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Better to be wise with the many than a fool all alone.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Blame is like lightning—it hits the highest.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Deceit rules and things are judged by their surface.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Distinguish people of words from people of deeds and never accept wages in windy words or in politeness which is only polite deceit.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Do not listen to yourself […] the attention you pay to yourself you probably owe to others.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Everyone has a high opinion of himself, especially those who have the least ground for it.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Everyone is as others wish them to be... win their hearts and so their tongues.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Everything is good or everything is bad according to who you ask… aim to be independent of any one opinion, of any one fashion, of any one century.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Find the good in a thing at once […] amid a thousand defects, seize upon a single beauty.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Flattery is more dangerous than hatred... A wise person gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Folly consists not in committing folly but in not hiding it when committed... the wise try to hide their errors while fools boast of them”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Foolish friends get you into trouble, wise ones keep you out of it.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Friendship multiplies the good life, divides the evil, guards against misfortune, and brings fresh air to the soul.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Good things, when short, are twice as good... well said, is soon said.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Grace is everything - the breath of speech, the life of talent, the soul of action... without it, beauty is lifeless.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“He has all that makes nothing of what is nothing to him.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“He is twice as great who has all the perfections in the opinion of all except himself”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“He who knows himself knows how to strengthen his weakness.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one.”
Chapters:
72. Helpful Fear
Comments: Click to comment
“If you enter by the gate of pleasure, you leave by the door of sorrow.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“If you have to deny something, mature the 'no' by appealing to an inner court of revision.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“In times of prosperity, prepare for adversity.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“It is intolerable when an office engrosses someone with fixed hours and a settle routine... better to leave people free to follow their devices combining variety with importance.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“It is only of little known people that the failings are little known.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“It's imprudent to like people too easily because lies may be told by deeds as well as in words and this kind of deception is more dangerous.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Know how to wait…You must pass through the circumference of time before arriving at the center of opportunity… ‘Time and I against any two.’”
Chapters:
26. The Still Rule the Restless
Comments: Click to comment
“Know your strongest quality and cultivate it. Everyone would have excelled at something if they had known their strongest qualities but most do violence to themselves trying to be someone else.”
Chapters:
33. Know Yourself
Comments: Click to comment
“Leave things before things leave you... Wise trainers put racehorses out to pasture before they arouse derision by falling”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Lies always come first, truth lags last limping along on the arm of time.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Live and let live. Peacemakers rule life, sleep without bad dreams, and live a long happy life without dispute.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Make use of your enemies… The wise will turn ill will into a mirror more faithful than that of kindness”
Chapters:
31. Victory Funeral
Comments: Click to comment
“Most things are not obtained simply because they are not attempted.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Muddy fountain water doesn't get clear from our meddling but from us leaving it alone and likewise, often the best remedy for a disturbance is to let it run its course.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Never compete with someone who has nothing to lose.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Never compete. Every competition damages your reputation… people of goodwill are always at peace and those of good reputation are of goodwill.”
Chapters:
3. Weak Wishes, Strong Bones
Comments: Click to comment
“Never complain. To complain always brings discredit... and to disclose one insult just creates an excuse for another.”
Chapters:
36. The Small, Dark Light
Comments: Click to comment
“Never disclose the source of pain or joy, if you want one to cease and the other to endure.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Never go to extremes or drain anything to the dregs. If you push too hard for what’s right, it becomes wrong; if you milk a cow too much, you draw blood instead of milk.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Never hurt yourself to please another, better that they suffer now than you later and in vain.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Never let the extent of your wisdom and skill be known... guesses and doubts arouse more respect than accurate knowledge.”
Chapters:
15. Inscrutability
Comments: Click to comment
“Never let things be seen half finished because deformity sticks in the imagination. To see the tastiest dishes prepared arouses disgust rather than appetite. Take this lesson from Mother Nature who doesn't bring the child to light until it is fit to be seen.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Never start anything new if you have doubts... decisions made with certainty often turn out badly, how much more often if you start without confidence?”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Often, more is taught by a jest than by the most serious teaching.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“One of the worst mistakes we can make is taking too much to heart, being anxious about and focusing on what doesn't concern us while neglecting what's important.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“One person's misfortune is another's luck, for one cannot be lucky without many being unlucky... There are people who always consort with the unlucky, and he that yesterday flew high and happy today stands miserable at their side. That reveals nobility of soul but not worldly wisdom.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Pay respect that you may be respected and know that to be esteemed you must show esteem.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Philosophy is nowadays discredited, but yet it was always the chief concern of the wise.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Politeness is the main ingredient of culture — a kind of witchery that wins regard as surely as discourtesy gains opposition.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Pretend to overlook things… Most things should remain unnoticed.”
Chapters:
29. Not Doing
Comments: Click to comment
“Receive information with more caution from one who praises than from one who blames”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Show yourself less and you will be esteemed more.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Study people as deeply as you study books and you won't make painful mistakes about character. (chapter 157)”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“The alternation of contraries beautifies and sustains the world... by joining extremes, the more effective middle way is found.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“The chief characteristic of highminded integrity is speaking well of an enemy.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“The chief rule of life is to keep a double store of good and useful qualities.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“The first great rule of life - to put up with things – is half of all wisdom… We often have to put up with the most from those on whom we most depend… Out of patience comes forth peace, the priceless boon that is the happilness of the world.”
Chapters:
61. Lying Low
Comments: Click to comment
“The greatest wisdom often consists in the pretense of ignorance.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“The half is more than the whole, the reserve is more important that the attacking force.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“The imagination always jumps too soon and paints things in brighter colors than the real.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“The more pains you take, the more you should conceal them.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“The more you seek esteem, the less you obtain it... those who insist on the dignity of their office show they have not deserved it, and that it is too much for them.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“The pompous speak with an echo and at every sentence look for applause or flattery but contempt is the only reward for self-satisfaction.
”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“The secret of a long life is to lead a good one. The two things that shorten life the most quickly are immorality and folly.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“The sole advantage of power is that you can do more good.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“The wise always hope for the best but always expect the worst.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“The wise try to hide their mistakes while fools boast of them.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Things pass for what they seem, not for what they are.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Think more highly of what fate has given you rather than what it has denied.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Virtue is its own reward, vice its own punishment.”
Chapters:
69. No Enemy
Comments: Click to comment
“We’re judged by our friends, the insight of a true friend is invaluable, and yet most don’t pay attention. Choosing good friends is one of the most important things in life. Therefore choose them by choice, not by chance.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“When people press for a reply, it is best to defer it... Long expected is highest prized.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“When you hear something positive about yourself, keep a tight rein on your belief. When you hear something negative, give your belief the spur.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“Write your intentions in cypher and like an inky cuttlefish disguise them.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“You may be obliged to wage war but not to use poisoned arrows.”
Chapters:
Comments: Click to comment
“The Art of Worldly Wisdom is a book made for constant use, a companion for life... to read it only once is obviously not enough.”
Comments: Click to comment
“Europe has never produced anything finer or more complicated in matters of moral subtlety... In his experiences of life, Gracian shows a wisdom and perspicacity that cannot be compared with anything today.”
Comments: Click to comment
Comments (0)
Log in to comment.