Some Wise Guys

 

"These may be platitudes, but they are framed in wit, the swift phrase firmly lodged in the brain."  -- Louis Untermeyer

From distant Epictetus to Washington (Rules of Civility) and Franklin, to the more contemporary Ambrose Bierce,  Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken and Will Rogers, aphorists and writers of epigrams have surely been better guides to ethics and living than those who suck up our airspace such as celebrities,  economists, evangelists, dunces and murderous dictators.

A while back, we took a look at another gem of this genre, The Wisdom of Amenemopet from ancient Egypt.  I had not heard of this before; it's always surprising to discover how the more you know about a subject you discover how much more you don't know.  It would have been a much better use of time to have read this in school rather than Great Expectations.

And I had never heard of Balthazar Gracian's The Art of Worldly Wisdom either.  This volume of 300 maxims was published in 1647 by Gracian, a Jesuit teacher and preacher, under a pseudonym as with all of his other books but one, because his sort of Rabelaisian satire and irreverence was not appreciated by his employer.  After he read a "letter" supposedly sent by the Devil from the pulpit, however, he pushed the unamused Church too far and was censured and sent into internal exile.  Gracian won this tiff in the end; his Wisdom was a best seller in both 1892 and 1992!  Some examples:

-- Never compete with someone who has nothing to lose

-- A synonym is a word you use when you cannot spell the right one

-- Never open a door to a lesser evil for other and greater ones slink in after it

-- A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity

-- The wise at once does what the fool does at last

-- Dreams will get you nowhere; a good kick in the pants will take you a long way

-- Every fool stands convinced...the faultier a person's judgement the firmer the convictions (T. S. Eliot completely agreed)

-- Always act as if you were seen...if you can't be good be careful

-- Politeness is the chief sign of culture (That one's for you, Canada)

***

And from our more misanthropic and cynical countrymen:

Bierce:  He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity

Twain:  Never refuse to do a kindness unless the end would work great injury to yourself, and never refuse to take a drink -- under any circumstances

Rogers: Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" until you can find a rock

Mencken:  Puritanism --  the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy

Wit and wisdom make a perfect cocktail.