Thursday, April 22, 2010

Wisdom for the 21st century.

Post 472 - Wisdom is defined as a deep understanding of people, things, events or situations, which results in the ability to choose or act to consistently produce the optimum results with a minimum of time and energy. These aphorisms on life and the way you should live are from The Art of Worldly Wisdom, which was written in 1637 by a Spanish Jesuit priest called Baltasar Gracian. The book is a collection of 300 paragraphs on various topics giving advice and guidance on how to live fully, advance socially, and be a better person. It has as much to teach us today as it had in the seventeenth century.

- Do good a little at a time, but often.

- Have no careless days.

- Keep to yourself the final touches of your art.

- Do not show your wounded finger.

- Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult and difficult as if they were easy.

- Never let things be seen half finished.

- Do not explain too much.

- Do not carry fools on your back.

- Watch out for people who begin with another's concern in order to end with their own.

- Leave something to wish for.

- In all things keep something in reserve.

- Never have a companion who puts you in the shade

- Have knowledge, or know those who do.

- Get used to the failings of those around you.

- Do not be the slave of first impressions.

- Always act as if others were watching.

- Do and be seen doing.

- Use, but do not abuse, cunning.

- Drain nothing to the dregs, neither good nor bad.

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