title: The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle
author: Baltasar Gracian
description: Maurer retranslates a 17th-century Jesuit's aphorisms and reflections on the morality of success. This long-admired work sounds surprisingly relevant today. It also combines brevity and grace of expression with wise advice, which should appeal to those seeking "how-to" spirituality which is universal, practical, and applicable in business. Recommended for public libraries.<br />Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: THE ART
  
  **OF**
  
   **WORLDLY WISDOM**
  
   **BY**
  
   **BALTHASAR GRACIAN**
  
   **TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH BY**
  
   **JOSEPH JACOBS**
  
  [1892]
  
  Scanned, Proofed, and formatted at sacred-texts.com, June 2005, by John Bruno
  Hare. This text is in the public domain in the United States because it was
  published prior to 1923.
  
  This ePub / PDF version edited by Andrew Burke at http://www.andrewburke.ca
  October 2010
  
   **i**
  
  Everything is at its Acme; especially the art of making one's way in the
  world. There is more required nowadays to make a single wise man than formerly
  to make Seven Sages, and more is needed nowadays to deal with a single person
  than was required with a whole people in former times.
  
  **ii**
  
  Character and Intellect: the two poles of our capacity; one without the other
  is but halfway to happiness. Intellect sufficeth not, character is also
  needed. On the other hand, it is the fool's misfortune, to fail in obtaining
  the position, the employment, the neighbourhood, and the circle o