"Things have their seasons, and even certain kinds of eminence go in and out of style. But wisdom has an advantage: she is eternal. If this is not her century, many others will be."
- The Art of Worldly Wisdom, page 12
"Don't outshine your boss. Being defeated is hateful, and besting one's boss is either foolish or fatal. Superiority is always odious, especially to superiors and sovereigns."- The Art of Worldly Wisdom, page 4
Nuanced indeed, with bosses you can help them, joke with them, work harder and better than them, but never make them feel stupid.
If anything, these days you may not lose your head for such transgressions, but perhaps your reputation will take a beating. In any case, the higher you are in the echelons of power, the more it pays to think like a power-player but behave as though you are in danger of losing everything with your next move. Think cautiously, consult Gracian and if you really can’t make the right decision, try to behave ethically.
"Associate with those you can learn from. Let friendly relations be a school of erudition, and conversation, refined teaching. Make your friends your teachers and blend the usefulness of learning with the pleasure of conversation."- The Art of Worldly Wisdom, page 6
Examine the lives of some of the most successful people in history and you’ll find that at any given time they went out of their way to cultivate meaningful relationships with individuals and personalities who were more intelligent than them in some way, and would work hard to keep them connected with each other, and with themselves to create a network of influence and knowledge that they could always seek refuge in.
Building a network like this around themselves which they could feed, expand, and enrich with new personalities meant that they could dip into it for advice, information, and solutions to the challenges they faced and for the decisions they had to make. By befriending intellectuals and by cultivating friendships with teachers, they also ensured that they were never bored, and could always learn and teach at the same time without being afraid of alienating or insulting others in turn.
"Be well informed. The discreet arm themselves with a store of courtly, tasteful learning: not vulgar gossip, but a practical knowledge of current affairs. They salt their speech with witticisms, and their actions with gallantry, and know how to do so at the right moment. Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than through grave teaching. The wisdom passed along in conversation has meant more to some than the seven arts, no matter how liberal."- The Art of Worldly Wisdom, page 13
Didn’t George Bernard Shaw write, “If you’re going to tell people the truth, you’d better make them laugh. Otherwise they’ll kill you”? Haven’t the great scholastic traditions handed down to us from the ages emphasized the value of debate and conversation in the learning process?
Here are some ways you can keep yourself in the game:
These are all some of the ways to keep your storehouse of knowledge well-stocked, so that you will never be left clueless in any conversation.
At the same time, learn to also develop the art of conversation and of asking questions that will help you get the answer that you want quickly.
It’s reflected in the old adage that I learned when I was younger: If you see a carpet-weaver weaving a carpet in the street, don’t ask him what he’s doing. It should be obvious that he’s weaving a carpet, and now you’ve wasted some of his patience and your time. Ask him instead to show you how he weaves his carpet, and learn from him. In the process of the conversation ebbing back-and-forth, you’ll learn why he weaves carpets, what he sees in his designs, and how he wants to improve his craft. Such a conversation will be more enriching, and will likely allow you to relate his stories to your own so that you actually learn something as a result.
There’s plenty more to learn, as handbooks go – it pays to keep a copy of Baltasar Gracian’s The Art of Worldly Wisdom in your bag or briefcase, when you’re travelling or looking to kill time. Reading it is not only time well-spent, but certainly an investment that can generate endless returns over the course of your lifetime.
The son of a doctor, in his childhood Graci√°n lived with his uncle, who was a priest. He studied at a Jesuit school in 1621 and 1623 and theology in Zaragoza. He was ordained in 1627 and took his final vows in 1635.
