Translations of the Art of Worldly Wisdom by Gracian

Baltasar Gracián: "The Art of Worldly Wisdom" (Intro). His 300 Aphorisms.

Read all my Baltasar Gracián posts.

Today, I start a long project on my weblog. Over the side by side months, I plan to gradually post the unabridged book, The Art of Worldly Wisdom (Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia), past Baltasar Gracián. Even though he wrote information technology in 1647, his wisdom, wit, and practical advice on living sound unbelievably modern.

He should provoke some lively discussions here (and on my blog), if you lot guys are willing to accept them.

Many have translated this book from Spanish. The versions I own and similar all-time are by Christopher Maurer (1992) and Joseph Jacobs (1892, but modernized in 1993 by Shambhala Publications).

You may read both the full Christopher Maurer version and the full Shambhala version here. I will post BOTH versions daily on my web log. Bask!

From the excellent Christopher Maurer translation. He is the chair of the Spanish and Portuguese Dept. at Vanderbilt University:

Book flap

"Throughout the centuries, mankind has produced 3 bully, timeless wisdom books: Machiavelli's The Prince, Sun Tzu'southward The Art of War, and Baltasar Gracián's The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle....

[It] was written 300 years ago by ane of Espana's greatest writers---a worldly Jesuit scholar and keen observer of many in positions of power. Gracián's work draws on careful study of statesmen and potentates who managed to combine ethical beliefs with worldly effectiveness. Each of the elegantly crafted maxims in this book offers valuable insight on the art of living and the do of achieving.

According to novelist Gail Godwin, "The oracle scintillates with Machiavellian know-how, merely with scruples....The reader today who faithfully follows its precepts will never make a fool of himself or herself and may even keep to become useful and wise."...

Gracián'due south communication is as astonishingly appropriate today every bit it was in 17th century Spain, a society resembling our own in its face-to-face splendor and apple-polishing misery. These secular moral reflections on reality and appearances, cocky-love and friendship, wit and ignorance are sharply pragmatic, but however get out room for spirituality, tempered by prudence and discretion.

Introduction

The Art of Worldly Wisdom [AOWW] is a book of strategies for knowing, judging, and acting: for making one's mode in the world and achieving distinction and perfection. Information technology is a drove of 300 aphorisms too delicious not to share with friends and colleagues, besides penetrating not to hide from enemies and rivals. Its platonic reader is someone whose daily occupation involves dealing with others: discovering their intentions, winning their favor and friendship, or defeating their designs and "checkmating their will." Like all aphorisms, these are meant to be read slowly, a few at a time....

[The AOWW] sees life equally warfare involving both being and seeming, both appearance and reality. It provides advice not just for modern "image makers" and "spin doctors," simply also for the aboveboard: for those who insist that substance, not image, is what really matters. "Do, but as well seem," is Gracián'due south pithy advice (#130). It assumes that good people are those most easily duped---sheep in the midst of wolves---and it teaches united states of america to temper the innocence of the pigeon with the wisdom of the serpent, governing ourselves according to the manner people are, rather than the way they would like to be or to announced....

Schopenhauer wrote:

...information technology is especially [for] immature people who wish to prosper in the world. To them it gives at one time and beforehand that teaching which they could otherwise only obtain through long feel. To read it in one case through is plain not plenty; it is a book fabricated for abiding employ as occasion serves---in brusk, to be a companion for life.

[This is not] an entirely cynical, Machiavellian [vocalization]...[The AOWW] insists on the perfectability of man and the capacity of goodness, assisted by fine art, to triumph over evil. It is true that in [the AOWW] perfection depends not upon religious revelation (God appears only rarely in these pages) but upon human being resource and manufacture: attentiveness, mastery of one's emotions, self-knowledge, and other forms of prudence. In that location is, still, null irreligious or overly "pessimistic" virtually this emphasis on human reason....Gracián assumes, without saying so, that God helps those who help themselves.

What is disconcertingly "modern" about this volume is the apparent subordination of ideals to strategy. Moral generalizations, the immutable "difficult rules" of ethics, yield, in these pages, to the confidence that to accomplish perfection ane must adapt to circumstance. To reach Gracián's prudencia (wisdom or prudence) one avoids generalities---among them, generalizations about morals. The AOWW bids united states to speak the truth simply to administer it skillfully, with a touch of artifice (#210)...We are to be "learned with the learned, saintly with the saints...detect [others'] temperaments and adapt [ourselves] accordingly" (#77)....Merely even mutability and dissimulation [concealing one'southward power in gild to gain the chemical element of surprise over an opponent] must not harden into guiding principles. Gracián's insistence on adaptability, on metamorphosis and camouflage, reveals...a poignant sense of man'due south fragility and vulnerability.

Nor can Gracián exist accused of indifference to the spiritual or material well-being of others. Avoid fools, he tells us repeatedly, but beyond that his injunctions are articulate: "Speak what is very good, do what is very honorable" (#202). "Know how to exercise good" (#255): lilliputian by little, with moderation....Every bit for the "cynicism" of which he is ofttimes accused,...what many of united states telephone call "optimism"---a conventionalities that people are basically skilful and that things will plow out for the best---Gracián would take regarded every bit a hoax of the imagination: "Hope is a great falsifier." (#19) Let proficient judgment keep her in check....

Gracián labored painfully toward desengaño, the country of full "disenchantment"...in which one gains command of one'due south hopes and fears, overcomes deceitful appearances and vain expectations, and weans oneself from false worldly values. Much of the AOWW, with its insistence on curbing the imagination, concerns strategies for reaching that bittersweet beatitude. Optimism would have seemed out of place, anyway, in 17th century Spain...a kingdom in social turmoil and political decline....But strategy---incessant plotting confronting 1's own weaknesses and those of others---allows us to push forward to perfection....

Though he never held an important position in public life, his aphorisms draw on long and careful observation of human behavior, both in peace and in warfare....

He is 1 of the most laconic writers of the 17th century...antonym and paradox; the abiding utilize of ellipses; the concentration of meaning brought near by punning and other sorts of wordplay; the lack of connective tissue between one sentence---one point---and some other....These traits are more than idiosyncracies: they arise from a vision of homo nature. The stylistic values reflected in these pages---wit, intensity, concision, subtlety---are as well rules for wise living. For Gracián, living is a high art. Aesthetic strategies correspond to moral ones. In other words, the author'southward relations with the reader are coordinating to the reader'southward relations to those around him. The writer fences with the reader, withholds his meaning, disguises his intentions, avoids putting all of his cards on the tabular array, keeps matters in suspense, and uses obscurity to awaken admiration and reverence: the reverence due to an oracle. "The truths that matter most to united states of america," Gracián writes cocky-reflectively, "are always half-spoken, fully understood only by the prudent" (#25); "secrecy has the feel of the divinity" (#160).

Gracián does not mingle with the common reader, does not court his affection; he knows that affection spoils veneration and that familiarity breeds antipathy (#177). He does not want his writing and thinking to please the oversupply (#28, #245). He would have agreed with Luis de Góngora, Spain's bully Baroque poet:

It has been a affair of honor to me to make myself obscure to the ignorant, for that is what distinguishes the learned; to speak in a style that seems Greek to the ignorant, for precious pearls should not be bandage earlier swine.

Despite Gracián's authorial aloofness, the AOWW has delighted many thousands of readers. Perhaps that aloofness is a strategy for success. "Another trick," he writes, "is to offer something simply to those in the know, for everyone believes himself an proficient, and the person who isn't volition want to be one. Never praise things for beingness easy or common : you'll make them seem vulgar and facile. Everybody goes for something unique." (#150)...

No doubt the ellipses and zigzags of his thought has contributed to the AOWW's lasting entreatment. "Don't express your ideas too clearly...To exist valued, things must be difficult: if they tin can't understand you, people will recall more highly of yous." (#253) The aphorisms are not arranged as a system...."it is easy to kill the bird that flies in a straight line, but not the i that changes its line of flight." (#17) Not that the book is organized chaotically. Gracián's arroyo is dialectical: as happens with popular proverbs, i aphorism offsets another, contradicting or complementing it, and moral phenomena are viewed from different perspectives. One fragment tells us how to perform a maneuver, some other, how to defend ourselves from it.

Equally for brevity, it also is both an aesthetic ideal and a strategy for survival. Say less, and yous---as author or reader---will be less probable to be discovered, contradicted, proven wrong. "Speak equally though you were writing your attestation: the fewer words, the fewer lawsuits." (#160) And "good things, if brief, [are] twice good."

All of Baltasar Gracián's 300 aphorisms:

001 All has reached perfection, and becoming a truthful person is the greatest perfection of all.
002 Character and intelligence.
003 Keep matters in suspense.
004 Knowledge and backbone take turns at greatness.
005 Make people depend on yous.
006 Reach perfection.
007 Don't outshine your dominate.
008 Not to be swayed by passions: the highest spiritual quality of all.
009 Avert the defects of your land.
010 Fame and fortune.

011 Acquaintance with those you tin learn from.
012 Nature and art, cloth and labor.
013 Act on the intentions of others: their ulterior and superior motives.
014 Both reality and manner.
015 Surround yourself with auxiliary wits.
016 Cognition and honorable intentions.
017 Continue irresolute your style of doing things.
018 Application and chapters.
019 When you first something, don't raise other people'due south expectations.
020 A person born in the right historic period.

021 The art of success.
022 Be well informed.
023 Don't have a unmarried imperfection.
024 Temper your imagination.
025 Know how to accept a hint.
026 Find each person's "handle," his weak indicate.
027 Ameliorate to exist intensive than all-encompassing.
028 Be vulgar in zero.
029 Exist righteous and house.
030 Don't occupy yourself with disreputable things.

031 Know the fortunate in order to choose them, and the unfortunate in order to abscond from them.
032 Be known for pleasing others.
033 Know when to put something aside.
034 Know your best quality.
035 Weigh matters carefully.
036 Take the measure of your luck.
037 Know what insinuation is, and how to use it.
038 Quit while you're alee.
039 Know when things are at their height, when they are ripe, and know how to take advantage of them.
040 Grace in dealing with others.

041 Never exaggerate.
042 Built-in to dominion.
043 Feel with the few, speak with the many.
044 Sympathy with the peachy.
045 Use, but don't abuse, hidden intentions.
046 Temper your contempt.
047 Avoid committing yourself to risky enterprises.
048 You are as much a real person as you are deep.
049 A person of sharp observation and sound judgment.
050 Never lose your cocky-respect.

051 Know how to cull.
052 Never lose your composure.
053 Be diligent and intelligent.
054 Human activity boldly but prudently.
055 Know how to wait.
056 Think on your feet.
057 Thoughtful people are safer.
058 Adapt to those around you.
059 Cease well.
060 Skillful judgment.

061 Eminence in what is best.
062 Employ the best instruments.
063 The excellence of being first.
064 Avert grief.
065 Elevated taste.
066 Take intendance to brand things plough out well.
067 Choose an occupation in which you can win praise.
068 Make others empathize.
069 Don't give in to every common impulse.
070 Know how to say no.

071 Don't be inconsistent, either because of temperament or out of affectation.
072 Be resolute.
073 Know when to exist evasive.
074 Don't be unfriendly.
075 Choose a heroic model.
076 Don't always be joking.
077 Accommodate yourself to anybody else.
078 Skill at trying things out.
079 A jovial character.
080 Be careful when you inform yourself well-nigh things.

081 Renew your luminescence.
082 Neither all bad nor all adept.
083 Let yourself some venial fault.
084 Know how to utilize your enemies.
085 Don't be the wild bill of fare.
086 Head off rumor.
087 Civilisation and refinement.
088 Deal with others in a grand way.
089 Know yourself.
090 The art of living long: live well.

091 Never act unless you recall it prudent to practice so.
092 Transcendent wisdom.
093 A universal human being.
094 Unfathomable gifts.
095 Keep expectations alive.
096 Good mutual sense.
097 Make your reputation and keep it.
098 Write your intentions in nil.
099 Reality and appearance.
100 A man free of cant and illusion.

101 Half the earth is laughing at the other half, and folly rules over all.
102 A tummy for big helpings of fortune.
103 To each, the dignity that befits him.
104 Take a adept sense of what each job requires.
105 Don't be tedious.
106 Don't flaunt your expert fortune.
107 Don't wait self-satisfied.
108 A shortcut to condign a true person.
109 Don't berate others.
110 Don't expect to be a setting sun.

111 Have friends.
112 Win the goodwill of others.
113 Plan for bad fortune while your fortune is good.
114 Never compete.
115 Get used to the failings of your friends, family, and acquaintances.
116 Always deal with people of principle.
117 Don't talk about yourself.
118 Exist known for your courtesy.
119 Don't make yourself disliked.
120 Live practically.

121 Don't make much ado about nothing.
122 Mastery in words and deeds.
123 A person without affectation.
124 Make yourself wanted.
125 Don't exist a blacklist of others' faults.
126 The fool isn't someone who does something foolish, only the ane who doesn't know how to conceal it.
127 Ease and grace in everything.
128 Highmindedness.
129 Never complain.
130 Do, but likewise seem.

131 A gallant spirit.
132 Reconsider.
133 Better to be mad with anybody than sane all alone.
134 Double your store of life's necessities.
135 Don't have the spirit of contradiction.
136 Size upward the matter.
137 The wise are sufficient unto themselves.
138 Get out things alone.
139 Know your unlucky days.
140 Get straight to the good in everything.

141 Don't mind to yourself.
142 Don't defend the wrong side out of stubbornness.
143 Don't exist paradoxical to avoid beingness vulgar.
144 Enter conceding and come out winning.
145 Hide your wounded finger.
146 Wait deep inside.
147 Don't be inaccessible.
148 Be skilled in conversation.
149 Let someone else take the hit.
150 Know how to sell your wares.

151 Think alee.
152 Don't keep visitor with those who will brand yous seem less gifted.
153 Don't step into the huge gap left by someone else.
154 Neither quick to believe, nor quick to love.
155 Skill at mastering your passions.
156 Select your friends.
157 Don't be mistaken almost people.
158 Know how to use your friends.

159 Know how to endure fools.
160 Speak prudently.

161 Know your own sweetness faults.
162 Conquer envy and malevolence.
163 Don't allow your sympathy for the unfortunate brand yous one of them.
164 Float a trial balloon.
165 Wage a clean state of war.
166 Distinguish the man of words from the man of deeds.
167 Be self-reliant.
168 Don't become a monster of foolishness.
169 Better to avoid missing in one case than to hit the mark a hundred times.
170 In all matters, keep something in reserve.

171 Don't waste material the favors people owe y'all.
172 Never compete with someone who has nothing to lose.
173 Don't be made of glass in your dealings with others.
174 Don't live in a bustle.
175 A person of substance.
176 Either know, or listen to someone who does.
177 Don't grow too familiar with others.
178 Trust your middle.
179 Reserve is the seal of talent.
180 Never govern yourself past what your enemy ought to practise.

181 Don't prevarication, merely don't tell the whole truth.
182 Show anybody a fleck of daring; a of import sort of prudence.
183 Don't agree on to anything too firmly.
184 Don't stand up on ceremony.
185 Don't risk your reputation on 1 curlicue of the dice.
186 Know when something is a defect.
187 When something pleases others, do it yourself. When it is odious, accept someone else practice it.
188 Detect something to praise.
189 Utilize other people'south privations.
190 Find consolation in everything.

191 Don't have payment in politeness.
192 A peaceable person is a long-lived i.
193 Beware of someone who pretends to put your interest before his own.
194 Be realistic near yourself and your own affairs.
195 Know how to appreciate.
196 Know your lucky star.
197 Never stumble over fools.
198 Know how to transplant yourself.
199 Be prudent when yous try to win esteem.
200 Have something to hope for.

201 Fools are all those who look like fools, and one-half of those who practise non.
202 Words and deeds make a perfect man.
203 Know the great men of your age.
204 Undertake the easy as though it were difficult, and the difficult every bit though it were like shooting fish in a barrel.
205 Learn to use scorn.
206 Know that at that place are vulgar people everywhere.
207 Use self-command.
208 Don't die from an set on of foolishness.
209 Gratuitous yourself from mutual foolishness.
210 Know how to handle truth.

211 In heaven all is delectation, in hell all is sorrow, and on world, which is in between, we detect both.
212 Never reveal the final stratagems of your art.
213 Know how to contradict.
214 Don't plough one human activity of foolishness into two.
215 Pay attention to the person with hidden intentions.
216 Express yourself clearly.
217 Neither love nor hate forever.
218 Never practise something out of stubbornness, but out of attentive reflection.
219 Don't be known for your artifice.
220 If y'all can't clothing the skin of a panthera leo, wear the pare of a fox.

221 Don't be hotheaded.
222 Cautious hesitation is a sign of prudence.
223 Don't be eccentric.
224 Know how to take things.
225 Know your major defect.
226 Be sure to win people'due south favor.
227 Don't give up to beginning impressions.
228 Don't be a scandal sheet.
229 Parcel out your life wisely.
230 Open your eyes before information technology is too late.

231 Never testify half-finished things to others.
232 Have a affect of the practical.
233 Don't error other people's tastes.
234 If you trust your honour to someone else, go on his in pledge.
235 Know how to ask.
236 Plow someone'due south reward into a favor.
237 Never share your secrets with those greater than you lot.
238 Know what piece you are missing.
239 Don't be overly clever.
240 Make use of folly.

241 Permit yourself to be joked about, just don't joke about others.
242 Follow through on your victories.
243 Don't be all dove.
244 Identify others in your debt.
245 Sometimes you should reason with uncommon sense.
246 Don't requite explanations to those who haven't asked for them.
247 Know a little more than, alive a picayune less.
248 Don't be obsessed with the latest.
249 Don't starting time living when you should be ending.
250 When should nosotros reason astern?

251 Utilise homo means as though divine ones didn't exist, and divine means as though there were no human ones.
252 Live neither entirely for yourself nor entirely for others.
253 Don't express your ideas as well conspicuously.
254 Don't scorn an evil considering it is a small one.
255 Know how to practise good.
256 Be prepared.
257 Terminate curt of breaking off.
258 Look for someone to help bear your misfortunes.
259 Foresee affronts and turn them into favors.
260 Yous can't vest entirely to others, and no ane tin exist entirely yours.

261 Don't persist in folly.
262 Know how to forget.
263 Many pleasant things are better when they vest to someone else.
264 Don't have days when you are careless.
265 Go those who depend on y'all into tough situations.
266 Don't be bad by being too good.
267 Silken words, delivered gently.
268 The wise do sooner what fools practise later.
269 Accept reward of your novelty.
270 Don't exist the only one to condemn what is popular.

271 If y'all know little, stick to what is surest in each profession.
272 Add courtesy to the price of what you're selling.
273 Understand the characters of the people you are dealing with.
274 Be charming.
275 Row with the current, only preserve your nobility.
276 Renew your character with nature and with fine art.
277 Display your gifts.
278 Don't call attending to yourself.
279 Don't answer those who contradict y'all.
280 An honorable person.

281 Win favor from the intelligent.
282 Utilize absence.
283 Be inventive, just sensibly.
284 Mind your own business organisation.
285 Don't perish on account of someone else's bad luck.
286 Don't go completely into debt with anyone and everyone.
287 Don't human action when moved by passion.
288 Conform yourself to circumstance.
289 A man'south worst disgrace: showing he is i.
290 It is never a good idea to mix appreciation and affection.

291 Know how to exam others.
292 Let your character be superior to the requirements of the job.
293 Maturity.
294 Moderate your opinions.
295 Not a braggart, but a doer.
296 A man of majestic gifts.
297 Always behave as though others were watching.
298 Iii things make a curiosity . . .
299 Leave people hungry.
300 In a word, be a saint; that says everything.

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Source: https://philosophy.livejournal.com/1814803.html

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