I recently read this curt book of aphorisms and found some apt advise on how to live our lives well. Baltasar Gracian was a Spanish Jesuit priest and prose writer who lived in the 17th century. Enjoy...
21: The Art of Success. Good fortune has its rules and to the wise not everything depends upon chance. Fortune is helped along by effort. Some people confidently approach the door of Fortune, and wait for her to go to work. Others are more sensible; they stride through that door with a prudent sort of boldness. On the wings of their courage and virtue, audacity spies luck and flatters it into effectiveness. But the real philosopher has only one plan of action: virtue and prudence; for the only good and bad fortune lie in prudence or rashness.
38: Quit while you're ahead. All the best gamblers do. A fine retreat matters as much as a stylish attack. As soon as they are enough - even when they are many - cash in your deeds. A long run of good fortune s always suspicious. You're safer when god luck alternates with bad, and, besides, that makes for bittersweet enjoyment. When luck comes racing in on us, it is more likely to skp and smash everything to pieces. Sometimes Lady Luck compensates us, trading intensity for duration. She grows tired when she has to carry someone on her back for a long time.
52: Never lose your composure. Prudence tries never to lose control. This shows a real person, with a true heart, for magnanimity is slow to give in to emotion. The passion s are the humours of the mind...Master yourself thoroughly and no one will criticize you for being perturbed, either when thinkgs are at their best or at their worst. All will admire your superiority.
75: Create a heroic model, and emulate rather than imitate. There are examples of greatness, living texts of renown. Let each person choose the first in his field, not so much to follow him as to surpass them. Alexander cried at the tomb of Achilles, not for Achilles but for himself, for unlike Achilles, he had not yet been born to fame (According to Plutarch, Alexander the Great cried enviously befroe the tomb of Achilles because the latter had been lucky enough to be immortalized by Homer). Nothing makes a spirit so ambitious as the trumpet of someone else's fame. It frightens away envy and encourages noble deeds.
113: Plan for bad fortune while your fortune is good. In the summer it is wise to provide for winter, and it is easier to do so.
139: Know your unlucky days, for they exist. Nothing will turn out right. You can change your game, but bad luck will remain.
155: Skill at mastering your passions. Whenever possible, let reflection foresee the sudden movements of the passions. The prudent will do so easily. The first thing to do when you are upset is to notice that you are. You begin by mastering your emotions and determining not to go any further. Any excess of passion detracts from reason, but with this attentiveness, anger will never run away with you or trample on good sense.
179: Reserve is the seal of talent. A breast without reserve is an open letter. Have depths where you can hide your secrets: great spaces and little coves where important things can sink to the bottom and hide. Reserve comes from having mastered yourself, and being reserved is a genuine triumph.
188: Find something to praise. This will accredit your taste and tell others that you formed it on excellent hings, making them hope for your esteem. If someone has found out what perfection is, he will value it wherever it appears. Praise offers subjects for conversation and for imitation.
194: Be realistic about yourself and your own affairs. Everyone thinks highly of himself, and those who are least think themselves the most. Hope seizes on something and experience failes to deliver. A clear vision of reality is torture to a vain imagination. Be sensible. What the best but expect the worst, so as to accept any outcome with equanimity.
203: Know the great men of your age. They are not many. One Phoenix in all the world, one Great Captain, one perfect orator, one wise man per century, one eminent king in many. Mediocrities abound and win little esteem. Eminences are rare, for they require total perfection, and the higher the category, the harder it is to reach it.
207: Use self-control. Be especially alert towards chance events. The sudden movements of the passions throw prudence off balance, and here is where you can be lost. You move more in a single moment of furour or content than you do in many hours of indifference. Control yourself, especially your sudden impulses. It takes much reflection to keep a passion from bolting like a horse.
222: The tongue is a wild animal, and once it breaks loose, it is hard to return it to its cage. It is the pulse of the soul.
243: Don't be all dove. Let the guile of the serpent alternate with the innocence of the dove. No one is easier to fool than a good man; the person who never lies believes others easily, and the one who never decieves trusts others.
251: Use human means as if no divine ones exist; and use divine means as if no human means exist.
298: Three things make a marvel, and are at the acme of true nobility: fertile intelligence, deep power of judgment, and a pleasant, relevant taste. Imagination is a great gift, but it is greater still to reason well and understand the good. When one is twenty, the will reigns; at thirty, the intelligence; at forty, judgment. As for good taste, it seasons one's entire life.
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