How to Use Your Enemies - Baltasar Gracian (Notes)

How to Use Your Enemies - Baltasar Gracian (Notes)

Purchased sometime 2018

- ...whilst hope remembers, gratitude forgets. (p. 2)

-  No one is born complete; perfect yourself and your activities day by day until you become a truly consummate being, your talents and your qualities all perfected. This will be evident in the excellence of your taste, the refinement of your intellect, the maturity of your judgment, the purity of your will......The consummate man, wise in word and sensible in deed, is admitted into, and even sought out for, the singular company of the discreet. (p. 2-3)

- Princes like to be helped, but not surpassed. Advice should be offered as if a reminder of what they've forgotten, not an insight that they've never had. The stars teach us such subtlety, for though they are children of the sun and shine brightly, they never compete with it in all its radiance.(p. 3)

- The circumspect frequent the company of eminent individuals whose houses are theatres of greatness rather than palaces of vanity. (p.4)

- Graceful conduct is the chief ornament of life; it gets you out of any tight situation. (p.5)

- Have intelligent support. Good fortune -> Powerful - use of wise people..... A new type of mastery over what's best in life: skillfully make those whom nature made superior your servants.  There's much to know and life is short, and a life without knowledge is not a life. It's a singular skill effortlessly to learn much from many, gaining knowledge from all... Reputation as an oracle through the sweat of others (p.5-6)

- Vary your procedure (p.6)

- Knowing driving impulse -> key to one's will (p. 7)

- Sensible moderation -> best way to maintain good will (p. 8)

- Know your key quality, your outstanding gift. Cultivate it, and improve the rest. (p. 8)

- Do endless good (p. 10))

- A prime aim of good sense; never lose your cool (p. 11)

- Know how to adapt yourself (p. 11)

- Leave a good impression. Pay attention to how things end, ten, taking greater care to make a good exit than an widely applauded entrance.  (p. 12)

- Make sure of a successful outcome.  (p. 12)

- Not everything has to be granted, nor to everyone. Always let there be a few crumbs of hope to temper the bitterness of refusal. Let courtesy make up for the lack of favour, and fine words the lack of deeds. YES and NO -> quick to say but require much thought (p. 13)

- Know how to be evasive -> escape route of sensible people (p. 13)

- Know how to be all things to all people. A great art to win everyone over, similarity creates goodwill. (p.14)

- Take care when gathering information. Truth is normally seen but rarely heard. (p. 14)

- Dare to dazzle anew, rising repeatedly like the sun, shining in different fields, so that your absence in one area awakens desire and your novel appearance in another, applause. (p. 15)

- Understand yourself: your temperament, intellect, opinions, emotions. You can't be master of yourself if you don't first understand yourself. There are mirrors for the face, but none for the spirit: let discreet self-reflection be yours. Fathom your depths and weigh up your capacity for all things. (p. 17)

- Circumspect man -> allow himself to be known but not fully understood Never allow anyone to grasp everything about him. (p. 17)

- Moral sense -> throne of reason and the foundation of prudence (p. 17)

- Conceal your wishes. Passions are breaches in the mind. Dissimulation -> most practical kind of knowledge. (p. 18)