- Avoid The Faults Of Your Nation -

Water shares the good or bad qualities of the channels through which it flows and people share those of the climate in which they are born. Some owe more than others to their native land, because there is a more favorable sky in the zenith. There is not a nation among even the most civilized that has not some fault peculiar to itself that other nations blame by way of boast or as warning. It is a triumph of cleverness to correct in oneself such failings, or even to hide them. You get great credit for being unique among your fellows because what is less expected is esteemed all the more. There are also family failings as well as faults of position, of office, or of age. If these all meet in one person and are not carefully guarded against, they make an intolerable monster.

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- Fortune And Fame -

Where the one is fickle the other is enduring. The first is for this life, the second for the next; fortune against envy, fame against oblivion. Fortune is desired, and sometimes nurtured, but fame is earned. The desire for fame springs from virtue. Fame was and is the sister of the giants; it always goes to extremes - either horrible monsters or brilliant prodigies.

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- Cultivate Relationships With Those Who Can Teach You -

Let friendly intercourse be a school of knowledge, and let culture be taught through conversation. Thus you make your friends your teachers and mingle the pleasure of conversation with the advantages of instruction. Sensible people enjoy alternating pleasures: you are rewarded with applause for what you say and you gain instruction from what you hear. We are always attracted to others by our own interest, but in this case it is of a higher kind. Wise people frequent the houses of great nobility as theatres of heroism not temples of vanity. They are renowned for their worldly wisdom, not only for being oracles of all nobleness by their example and their behavior, but because of those who surround them form a courtly academy of worldly wisdom of the best and noblest kind.

- Nature And Art, Material And Workmanship -

There is no beauty unadorned and no excellence that would not become barbaric if it were not supported by artifice. This remedies the bad and improves the good. Nature scarcely ever gives us the very best - for that we must have recourse to art. Without this the best of natural dispositions remains uncultured, lacking half its excellence if training is absent. Everyone has something unrefined that needs training, and every kind of excellence needs some polish.

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- The Thing Itself And The Way It Is Done -

Substance is not enough, attention to circumstance is also required. A bad manner spoils everything - even reason and justice - a good one supplies everything, gilds, even sweetens truth, and add a touch of beauty to old age itself. The how plays a large part in affairs, a good manner steals people's hearts. Find behavior is a joy in life, and a pleasant expression can help you out of a difficult situation in a remarkable way.

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- Keep Auxiliary Wits Around You -

It is a privilege of the powerful to surround themselves with the champions of intellect who protect them from the dangers of every ignorance, who untangle them from the snarls of every difficulty. It is a rare greatness to know how to make use of the wise; it far exceeds the barbarous taste of Tigranes,* who delighted in enslaving kings as servants. It is a novel kind of supremacy - the best that life can offer - to use skill to make as servants of those who by nature are our masters. It is a great thing to know, little to live; there is no real life without knowledge. There is remarkable cleverness in studying without effort, in getting much by means of many, and through them all to become wise. Afterward, you speak in the council chamber on behalf of many, and since as many sages speak through your mouth as were consulted beforehand you thus obtain the fame of an oracle by others' efforts. Such auxiliary wits distil the best books and serve up the quintessence of wisdom. He that cannot have sages in service should have them for his friends.

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*Tigranes (c.140-55 B.C.E.), King of Armenia, had conquests across Asia Minor, and was in the habit of having the leaders of his vanquished foes appear in public with him.

- Knowledge And Good Intentions -

Together they ensure continued success. A fine intellect wedded to a wicked will is always an unnatural monster. A wicked will poisons all perfections; help by knowledge it only ruins with greater subtlety. It is a miserable superiority that only results in ruin. Knowledge without sense is double folly.

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- Application And Ability -

There is no attaining eminence without both, and where they unite there is the greatest fame. Mediocre people obtain more with application than superior people without it. Work is the price that is paid for by reputation. What costs little is of little worth. Even for the highest posts it is only in some cases application that is wanting, rarely the talent. To prefer moderate success in great things over eminence in a humble post may be excused by a generous mind, but there is no excuse for being content with humble mediocrity when you could shine among the highest. Thus nature and art are both needed, and application makes them complete.

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- Arouse No Exaggerated Expectations When You Start Something -

It is the misfortune of all celebrated people not to fulfill afterwards the expectations beforehand formed of them. The real can never equal the imagined, for it is easy to form ideals but very difficult to realize them. Imagination weds hope and gives birth to much more than things are in themselves. However excellent something is, it never suffices to fulfill expectations. And as people find themselves disappointed with their exorbitant expectations they are more readily disillusioned than impressed; let skill guard against this by ensuring that fruition exceeds desire. A few creditable attempts at the beginning are sufficient to arouse curiosity without pledging one to the final object. It is better that reality should surpass the design and it turns out better than was thought. This rule does not apply to wicked things, for the same exaggeration is a great aid with them and draws general applause; what seemed at first extreme ruin comes to be thought of as quite bearable.

- A Man Of The Times -

The rarest individuals depend on their times. It is not everyone that finds the times he deserves, and even when he finds it, he does not always know how to utilize it. Some people have been worthy of a better century, for every species of good does not always triumph. Things have their period - even excellent qualities are subject to fashion. Wisdom has one advantage: she is immortal. If this is not her century many others will be.

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- The Art Of Being Lucky -

There are rules of luck and the wise do not leave it all to chance. Luck can be assisted by care. Some content themselves with placing themselves confidently at the gate of fortune, waiting till she opens it. Others do better, and press forward and profit by their clever boldness, reaching the goddess and wining her favor on the wings of their virtue and valor. But a true philosophy has no other umpire than virtue and insight - for there is no good or bad luck except wisdom and foolishness.

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- Knowledge Has A Purpose -

Wise people arm themselves with tasteful and elegant erudition - a practical and expert knowledge of what is going on, not common gossip. They possess a copious store of wise and witty sayings, and of noble deeds, and know how to employ them at the right moment. Often, more is taught by a jest than by the most serious teaching. Knowledge gained in conversation can be of more help than the seven arts, however liberal.

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- Be Free Of Imperfection -

Few live without some weak point, either physical or moral, which they pamper even though they could easily cure it. The keenest of others often regrets to see a slight defect attaching itself to a whole assembly of elevated qualities, and yet a single cloud can hide the whole of the sun. There are likewise blemishes on our reputation, which those with ill will soon discover and continually point out. The highest skill is to transform them into ornament. So Caesar hid his natural defect [of baldness] with the laurel.

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- Keep your Imagination Under Control -

You must sometimes correct it, sometimes assist it. For it is all important for our happiness and balances reason. The imagination can tyrannize, not being content with looking on, but influences and even often dominates our life. It can make us happy or burden us, depending on the folly that it leads us to. It can make us either content or discontent with ourselves. Before some people it continually holds up the penalties of action and becomes the mortifying lash of fools. To other the imagination promises happiness and adventure with blissful delusion. It can do all this unless you lord over it with the most prudent self-control.

- Prize Intensity More Than Extent -

Excellence resides in quality not in quantity. The best is always few and rare - abundance lowers value. Even among men, the giants are usually really dwarfs. Some reckon books by the thickness, as if they were written to exercise the brawn more than the brain. Extent alone never rises above mediocrity; it is the misfortune of universal geniuses that in attempting to be at home everywhere are so nowhere. Intensity gives eminence and rises to the heroic in matters sublime.

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- Be Common In Nothing -

Especially not in taste. It is great and wise to be ill at ease when your deeds please the mob! The excesses of popular applause never satisfy the sensible. There are chameleons of popularity who find enjoyment not in the sweet savors of Apollo but in the breath of the mob. Secondly, do not be common in intelligence; take no pleasure in the wonder of the mob, for ignorance never gets beyond wonder. While vulgar folly wonders, wisdom watches for the deception.

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- Be A Person Of Integrity -

Cling to righteousness with such tenacity of purpose that neither the passions of the mob nor the violence of the tyrant can ever cause you to transgress the bounds of right. But who can be such a phoenix of equity ? What a scanty following rectitude has ! Many praise it indeed, but few devote themselves. Others follow it until danger threatens; then the false deny it and the politic conceal it. For righteousness cares not if it conflicts with friendship, power, or even self-interest; then comes the danger of desertion. Astute people make plausible distinctions so as not to stand in the way of their superiors or of reasons of state. But straightforward and constant people regard deception as a kind of treason and set more store in tenacity than on sagacity. Such people are always to be found on the side of truth, and if they desert a group, they do not change due to fickleness, but because the others have first deserted truth.

- Select The Lucky And Avoid The Unlucky -

Bad luck is generally the penalty of folly and for the unfortunate there is no disease so contagious. Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones will invariably slink in after it. The greatest skill at cards is to know when to discard; the smallest of current trumps is worth more than the ace of trumps of the last game. When in doubt, follow the suit of wise and prudent - sooner or later they will win the odd trick.

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- Have A Reputation For Being Gracious -

It is the chief glory of the high and mighty to be gracious, a prerogative of kings to conquer with universal goodwill. That is the great advantage of a commanding position - to be able to do more good than others. Those make friends who do friendly acts. On the other hand, there are some who fix themselves on not being gracious, not on account of the difficulty but due to a bad disposition. In all things they are the opposite of divine grace.

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- Know How To Withdraw -

If it is a great lesson in life to know how to deny, it is still greater to know how to deny oneself as regards both affairs and persons. There are extraneous occupations that eat away precious time. To be occupied in what does not concern you is worth than nothing. It is not enough for a careful person not to interfere with others, he must see that they do not interfere with him. One is not obliged to belong so much to others as not to belong at all to oneself. So with friends, their help should not be abused or more demanded from them than they themselves will grant. All excess is a failing, but above all in personal relationships. A wise moderation in this best preserves the goodwill and esteem for all, for by this means that precious boon of courtesy is not gradually worn away. Thus you preserve your genius and freedom to select the best and never sin against the unwritten laws of good taste.

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- Know Your Strongest Quality -

Know your preeminent gift - cultivate it and it will assist the rest. Everyone would have excelled in something if he had known his strong point. Notice in what quality you surpass and take charge of that. In some people judgment excels, in others valor. Most do violence to their natural aptitude and thus attain superiority in nothing. Time enlighten us too late of what was first only a flattering of the passions.

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- Think Things Over, Especially Those That Are Most Important -

All fools that come to grief from lack of thoughts. They never see even the half of things and, as they do not observe their own loss or gain, still less do they apply any diligence to them. Some make much of what matters little and little of much, always weighing in the wrong scale. Many never lose their common sense, because they have none to lose. There are matters that should be observed with the closest attention, and thereafter always kept well in mind. The wise person thinks over everything, but with a difference, most profoundly where there is some profound difficulty, suspecting that perhaps there is more in it than he first thought. Thus his comprehension extends as far as his apprehension.

- Before Acting Or Refraining, Weigh Your Luck -

More depends on that than on noticing your temperament. If he is a fool at forty applies to Hippocrates for health, still more is he one who only then first applies to Seneca for wisdom. It is a great piece of skill to know how to guide your luck even while waiting for it. For something is accomplished by just waiting to use at the proper moment, since it has periods and offers opportunities - though one cannot calculate its path because its steps are so irregular. When you find fortune favorable, stride boldly forward, for she favors the bold and, being a woman, the young. But if you have bad luck, withdraw so as not to redouble the influence of your unlucky star.

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- Keep A Store Of Sarcasms And Know How To Use Them -

This is the point of greatest tact in human intercourse. Such sarcasms are often thrown out to test people's moods, and by their means one often obtains the most subtle and penetrating touchstone of the heart. Other sarcasms are malicious, insolent, poisoned by envy or envenomed by passion, unexpected flashes that destroy at once all favor and esteem. Struck by the slightest word of this kind, many fall away from the closest intimacy with superiors or inferiors that would not have been the slightest shaken by a whole conspiracy of popular insinuation or private malevolence. Other sarcasms work favorably, confirming and assisting one's reputation. But the greater the skill with which they are launched, the greater the caution with which they should be anticipated and received. For here a knowledge of malice is in itself a means of defense, and a shot foreseen always misses its mark.

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- Leave Your Luck While Still Winning -

All the best players do it. A fine retreat is as good as a gallant attack. Bring your exploits under cover when there are enough, or even when there are many of them. Luck too long lasting is always suspicious; alternating luck seems safer, and is even sweeter to the taste for a little infusion of bittersweet. The higher the heap of luck, the greater the risk of a slip, and down comes all. Fortune pays you sometimes for the intensity of her favors by the shortness of their duration. She soon tires of carrying anyone long on her shoulders.

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- Recognize When Things Are Ripe, And Know How To Enjoy Them -

The works of nature all reach a certain point of maturity - up to them they improve, then they degenerate. Few works of art reach such a point that they cannot be improved. It is a special privilege of good taste to enjoy everything at its ripest. Not everyone can do this, nor do all who can know how. There is a ripening point too for fruits of intellect, but it is important to know how to recognize it in order to both value it and use it.