When I was in high school, my mentor gave me a copy of a small book that I have read and reread several times over the years. The Art of Worldly Wisdom, or The Pocket Oracle and the Art of Prudence, is a book of 300 maxims and commentaries written by a 17th-century Jesuit priest named Baltasar Gracian. Considered by many to be a superior Machiavelli in strategy and insight, Gracian’s aphorisms offer advice on how to thrive and prosper in a cutthroat world filled with cunning, duplicity, and power struggles while maintaining your dignity, honor, and self-respect. In many ways, The Art of Worldly Wisdom is a how-to book on how to fulfill Christ’s admonition to his apostles to be “cunning as serpents and harmless as doves.” The philosophers Schopenhauer and Nietzsche admired Gracian for his insight, subtlety, and the depth with which he understood the human condition.

While Gracian’s maxims were addressed to men trying to win favor in the dog-eat-dog world of 17th-century Spanish court life, they are equally applicable to the 21st-century man trying to simultaneously succeed in a hypercompetitive, globalized economy and develop a forthright, heroic character. Taken together, Gracian’s frank, incisive sayings are a reminder of the power of living with sprezzatura and that practical wisdom – the ability to do the right thing at the right time for the right reason – is essential to success in life. Below, I’ve highlighted a few of my favorite Gracian aphorisms. I highly recommend you pick up a copy of his book, with all 300 nuggets of wisdom, and keep it on your nightstand. This is a fine little book to leaf through and read in your spare time. You will be a better man for it.

To delight in their novelty is to respect your success. To lay all your cards on the table is neither useful nor pleasant. Not to lay all on the table at once feeds anticipation, especially when one’s high position means that expectations are higher. It speaks of mystery in everything, and by this very mystery arouses awe. Even in explaining oneself, one should avoid complete frankness, as one should not reveal oneself to everyone in all one’s affairs. A cautious silence is the refuge of common sense.

A decision openly announced is never observed; instead, it opens the way to criticism, and if all goes wrong, you will be doubly unhappy. Imitate the way the deity works, so that people remain attentive and vigilant.

No one is born complete; improve yourself and your activities day by day until you become a truly perfect being, and your talents and qualities are perfected. This will be evident in the perfection of your taste, the refinement of your intellect, the maturity of your judgment, the purity of your will. Some never succeed in being complete; there is always something missing. Others take a long time. The perfect man, wise in word and prudent in deed, is admitted and even sought after in the special company of the prudent.

Everything that is highly praised at first is usually discredited when it subsequently fails to live up to expectations. Reality can never live up to our expectations, because perfection is easy to imagine and very difficult to achieve. Imagination combines with desire and then imagines things much greater than they really are. However beautiful a thing may be, it is never enough to satisfy our idea of it, and, misled by excessive expectations, we are more likely to feel disappointment than admiration. Hope is the great falsifier of truth. Goodness must correct this by making sure that enjoyment exceeds desire. Good beginnings serve to arouse curiosity, not to guarantee results. Things go better when reality exceeds our first ideas and is greater than we expected. This rule does not apply to bad things.

Avoid speaking in superlatives, lest you offend the truth or sully your common sense. Exaggeration is excessive respect and indicates a lack of knowledge and taste. Praise awakens curiosity, excites desire, and if, as usually happens, the true value does not correspond to the original estimate, our expectation turns against the deception, and settles the score with contempt both for the praiser and the praised. Thus the wise are slow, and would rather understate than exaggerate. True greatness in things is rare; moderate your reverence. Exaggeration is a form of lying; by using it you lose the reputation of having good taste, which is bad, and of having knowledge, which is worse.

Even in solitude do not relax. Let your own integrity be the measure of your righteousness; owe more to the severity of your own opinion than to external rules. Stop yourself from doing anything wrong more from fear of your own good sense than from any stern external authority. Fear yourself, and you will not need the imaginary tutor of Seneca.

The main aim of good sense is never to lose your cool. This is the proof of true character, of a perfect heart, because generosity is hard to disturb. The passions are the juices of the mind, and any imbalance in them upsets good sense, and if this disease forces us to open our mouths, it will endanger our reputation. Keep yourself so well in hand that, whether things go well or ill, no one can accuse you of uneasiness, and everyone can admire your excellence.

Areasonable man is always the same in all areas of excellence, which is a sign of reasonableness. He should change only because the causes and merits of the situation change. Where common sense is concerned, variety is ugly. There are people who are different every day; uneven in their understanding, much less in their will and even in their luck. What they approved of yesterday, they disapprove of today, forever denying their reputation and confusing the opinion of others about themselves.

There are examples of greatness, living texts of glory. Choose the best in their field, not so much to follow as to surpass.

Alexander wept not for Achilles in his coffin, but for himself, who had not yet achieved

universal glory. Nothing excites ambition in the soul so much as the trumpeting of someone else’s glory: it crushes envy and inspires noble deeds.

your temperament, your intellect, your opinions, your emotions. You cannot be your own master unless you first understand yourself. There are mirrors for the face, but none for the spirit: let discreet self-reflection be yours. And when you have ceased to care about your external image, turn your attention to the internal to correct and improve it. Know how strong your common sense and insight are for any undertaking, and estimate your ability to overcome obstacles. Know your depths and weigh your abilities for everything.

The principle of the sensible person: leave things before they leave you. Know how to turn the end into a triumph. Sometimes the sun itself, still shining brightly, hides behind a cloud, so that no one can see its setting, leaving people in suspense whether it is setting or not. To avoid neglect, avoid being seen to refuse.

Don’t wait until everyone turns away from you, burying you alive to regret, but dead to respect. Someone with intelligence urges the racehorse at the right time, not waiting for everyone to laugh when he falls in the middle of the race. Let beauty sagaciously break her mirror when the time comes, not impatiently and not too late, when she sees her own illusions shattered in it.

This is advisable in situations of dependence. There are terrible people with whom you can neither live nor live without them. Therefore, it is necessary to be able to get used to them as to ugliness, so as not to be surprised every time their harshness appears. At first they will frighten you, but gradually your initial horror will disappear, and caution will anticipate or tolerate troubles.

Complaining always discredits. It provokes the passionate to disrespect you more than the compassionate to console you. It paves the way for anyone who hears it to follow suit, and, learning of the first man’s injury, makes the second feel that theirs is excusable. By complaining of past injuries, some men prepare the ground for future ones, and by seeking relief or consolation, they meet only with satisfaction and even with disdain. The best policy is to mark the advantages received from some, that others may imitate them. To enumerate favors received from those who are absent, is to ask them of those who are present; it is to sell the credit due to the first to the second. A prudent man never displays slights or faults, but only the esteem he has received, for these serve to preserve friends and deter enemies.

It should neither be used nor allowed.

Anyone who does this will lose the superiority that comes from dignity, and will thus lose respect. The stars, precisely because they remain so distant, retain their splendor. Divinity demands respect; familiarity breeds contempt. In human affairs, the greater the familiarity, the lower the respect, because intercourse reveals imperfections that are hidden. With no one is familiarity desirable: with superiors, because it is dangerous; with inferiors, because it is indecent; and especially not with the rabble, who, being stupid and so impudent, will not recognize the favor shown to them and will take it for granted. Familiarity is a form of vulgarity.

To appreciate. There is no one who cannot be better than anyone else at something, and no one who surpasses anyone who cannot be surpassed. Knowing how to enjoy the best in everyone is a useful form of knowledge. The wise appreciate everyone, recognizing the good in everything and knowing how much it costs to do anything well. Fools despise everyone, because they do not know the good and choose the worst.

The first, lest confidence make you careless; the second, lest uncertainty discourage you. To avoid doing something, nothing more is required than to think that it is being done. And conversely, diligence eliminates the impossible. Do not think about great things, only seize them when they arise, lest the consideration of their difficulty deter you.

The first form of politeness; the second, of courage. He who is irritated by a joke seems more like a beast than he really is. A good joke is a pleasure; to know how to take it is a sign of true character. Irritation merely provokes others to joke again and again. Know how far a joke can be carried, and it is safest not to begin one. The greatest truths have always been born of jokes. Nothing requires greater caution and skill: before you make a joke, know how far a person can carry it.

Some people put everything into the beginning and finish nothing. They invent something, but never hurry, revealing their fickle nature. They never get any praise, because they insist on nothing; everything ends without ending anything. In others it comes from impatience, a characteristic vice of the Spaniards, just as patience is a virtue of the Belgians. The last finish things, the first finish them. They sweat until the difficulty is overcome, and are happy to have conquered it, but do not know how to follow through; they show that they have the ability, but not the will. This is always a fault, arising from the acceptance of the impossible or from fickleness. If the matter is good, why not see it through? And if bad, why did they begin? The sagacious man should kill his prey, and not give up after he has driven it out.

There are people who believe the last thing they hear; stupidity always falls into one extreme or the other. Their feelings and desires are wax: the very last thing imprints itself on them and erases all the rest. They are never completely subdued, because they are as easily lost: anyone can paint them his own color. They make poor confidantes, and remain children forever: their opinions and emotions are constantly changing, and their will and judgment are crippled, wavering, now this way, now that.

Do not always be affectedly solemn and irritable. This is part of good manners. To win general favor, you must do without a little dignity. Sometimes you can follow the crowd, but not to the point of indecency, for he who is taken for a fool in public will never be thought wise in private. More is lost in a day of relaxation than is ever gained by seriousness. But do not always stand out from the rest: to be an exception is to condemn everyone else. Fastidiousness has much less effect – leave that to women. Even in spiritual matters it is ridiculous. The best thing in a man is to act like a man. While a woman can subtly affect a masculine appearance, the opposite is never true.

A man of insight is one who sees that others see or will see him. He knows that walls have ears, and that what is badly done always breaks out. Even when alone, he acts as if everyone sees him, knowing that eventually everything will come out. He already looks upon those who will later hear of his actions as witnesses to them. A man who wanted everyone to see him was not afraid that others might look into his house from the outside.