Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	dead_a	life_n	see_v	3,001	5	3.9761	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41733	The courtiers manual oracle, or, The art of prudence written originally in Spanish by Baltazar Gracian, and now done into English.; Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia. English	Gracián y Morales, Baltasar, 1601-1658.	1685 (1685)	Wing G1468; ESTC R6724	108,245	306

other ear for the adverse party Let a door be open for a second and third information It 's a sign of incapacity to stick to the first nay and a fault that borders upon head-strongness MAXIME CCXXVIII To have neither the report nor reputation of being a bad Tongue For that 's to be reckoned a general scourge Be not ingenious at the cost of another which is more odious than painfull All men revenge themselves of an evil Speaker by speaking evil of him and seeing he is alone he 'll be sooner overcome than the others who are numerous can be convicted Evil ought never to be the subject of contentment nor commentary A detractor is eternally hated and if sometimes great men converse with him it is more out os pleasure to hear his Satyres than for any esteem they have of him He that speaks ill causes always more to be said of himself MAXIME CCXXIX To know how to divide ones life like a man of Parts Not according as occasions present but by foresight and choice A life that hath no intermission is painfull like a long way where there is no Inn. Variety well understood makes it happy The first period ought to be spent in speaking with the dead We are born to know and to know our selves and it is by Books that we truly learn that and become complete men The second station is to be allotted for the living that 's to say that we ought to see what is best in the World and keep a register of it All is not to be found in one place The universal Father hath distributed his gifts and sometimes it hath pleased him to give a largess to the most miserable Countrey The third pause ought to be all for our selves The chief happiness is to Philosophize This Maxime is taken out of the last Chapter of his Discreet an abstract whereof it is fit to subjoin as a Commentary to it The Wise Man says he measures his life as one that hath little and much to live A life without rests is a long way without Inns. Nature hath proportioned the life of man according to the course of the Sun and the four ages of life according to the four seasons of the year The Spring of man begins in his Infancy The flowers of it are tender and the hopes frail It is followed by the hot and excessive Summer of Youth every way dangerous because of the boyling bloud and the frequent eruptions of passions The Autumn of Manly Age comes next crowned with the ripe fruits of mind and will and then at length the Winter of old Age wherein the leaves of vigour fall when the rivulets of the veins freeze Snow covers the Head when the Hair and Teeth are gone and when life trembles at the approaches of death And a page after It was a piece of celebrated wit in that gallant Person who divided the Comedy into three days and the voyage of life into three stations The first he employed in speaking with the dead the second in conversing with the living and the third in entertaining ones self Let us explain the riddle I say he gave the first term of life to Books He read them and that was rather a pleasure than a toil For if one be the more a man the more he knows the noblest employment will be to learn He devoured Books which are the food of the Soul and the delights of the mind It 's great happiness to meet with the best on every subject He learn't the two universal Languages Latine and Spanish which are now a-days the Keys of the World and the five particular to wit the Greek the Italian the French the English and the Dutch that he might make his profit of all the good that is celebrated in them After that he bequeathed himself to that Grand-mother of life the Wife of the Mind and the Daughter of Experience plausible History I mean that which delights and instructs most He began with the Ancients and ended with the Modern though others take the contrary course chusing his Authours and distinguishing the Times the Dates Centuries and Ages searching into the causes of the growth fall and revolution of Monarchies and Re-publicks the number order and qualities of their Princes their Actions in Peace and War He walked in the delicious Gardens of Poetry not so much to exercise himself as to play there Yet he was not so ignorant but that he knew how to make a verse nor so unadvised as to make two Amongst all the Poets he gave his heart to sententious Horace and his hand to subtile Martial which was to give him the Laurel To Poesie he joined savoury Humanity Then he proceeded to Philosophy and beginning with Natural he acquired the structure of the Universe of the marvellous being of Man of the properties of Animals and Plants and in fine of the qualities of pretious Stones But he took more pleasure in Moral Philosophy which is the food of real men as that which gives life to Prudence and he studied it in the Books of the Wise and Philosophers who have compiled it to us in Sentences Apophthegms Emblems and Apologues He knew both Cosmographies the material and formal measuring the Earth and the Sea distinguishing the Elevations and Climates the four parts of the world and in them Provinces and Nations that he might not be one of those Ignorants and half Beasts who have never known what it is they tread upon Of Astrology he knew as much as Wisedom suffers to be known c. In fine he crowned his Studies by a long and serious application to the reading of Holy Scriptures which is the most usefull universal and pleasant study for men of judgment So that Moral Philosophy rendred him Prudent Natural Knowing History Discreet Poetry Ingenious Rhetorick Eloquent Humanity Polite Cosmography Intelligent and the study of Holy Scripture Pious and Devote He employed the second part of his life in Travelling which is the second happiness of a man that 's curious and capable of making good use of it He sought and found all that was best in the world For when we see not things we enjoy them not fully There is a great deal to be said betwixt what one imagines and what he sees He takes more pleasure in objects who sees them but once than he that sees them often The first time one is contented at all others he is tired The first day a pretty thing is the pleasure of him who is the master of it but after that it affects him no more than that of a stranger He saw the Courts of greatest Princes and by consequent the Prodigies of Nature and Art in Picture Sculpture Tapestry Jewels c. He conversed with the excellentest men of the World either in learning or any thing else whereby he had the means of observing censuring confronting and putting the just value upon all things He spent the third part of so fine a life in meditating

No that went before We must not refuse point blanck but make our denial be taken down by little sips if I may say so Nor must we refuse all things neither lest we put people into despair but on the contrary leave always a remnant of hope to sweeten the bitterness of the denial Let Courtesie fill up the vacuity of favour and good words supply the defect of good deeds Yea and No are soon said but before we say them we should think on them long first MAXIME LXXI Not to be unequal and irregular in ones proceeding A prudent man never falls into that fault neither through humour nor affectation He is still the same in relation to that which is perfect which is the mark of a sound judgment If sometimes he change it is because the countenance of occasions and affairs is changed All inequality mis-becomes Prudence There are some who dayly differ from themselves Their understanding is even journal and much more their will and conduct What was yesterday their pleasant Yea is to day their unpleasant No. They always falsifie their proceeding and the opinion that men have of them because they are never themselves MAXIME LXXII The man of resolution Irresolution is worse than bad execution Waters corrupt not so long as they run but when they are standing There are some men so irresolute that they never doe any thing but when they are pusht on to it by others and that sometimes proceeds not so much from the puzle of their judgment which is often quick and subtile as from a natural laziness It is a sign of a great mind to raise to it self difficulties but of a greater to know how to clear them There are also men who are puzled at nothing and these are born for great employments inasmuch as the quickness of their conception and steadiness of their judgment facilitate to them the understanding and dispatch of affairs Whatever falls into their hands is as good as done One of that character having given the Law to one whole world had time enough over and above to think of another Such men undertake with assurance under the protection of their good fortune MAXIME LXXIII To find out Evasions Is the knack of men of wit With a touch of gallantry they extricate themselves out of the greatest labyrinth A gracefull smile will make them avoid the most dangerous quarrel The greatest of Captains founded all his Reputation upon that A word of a double meaning agreeably palliates a negative There is nothing better than never to be too well understood MAXIME LXXIII Not to be inaccessible The true wild Beasts are where most people are A difficult access is the vice of those whose manners honour hath changed To begin by rejecting of others is not the way to get credit How pleasant is it to see one of those untractable monsters strut it in the garb of haughtiness They who are so unhappy as to have business with them goe to their Audience as if they were going to fight with Tigers that 's to say armed as much with fear as circumspection To mount up to that post they cringed to all people but so soon as they are in it it seems they would take their revenge by huffing every body Their employment requires that they should be free to all men but their pride and surly humour makes them accessible to no man So that the true way to be revenged on them is to let them alone by themselves to the end that wanting all conversation they may never become wise MAXIME LXXV To propose to ones self some Heroe not so much to be imitated as to be surpassed There are models of grandeur and living books of reputation Let every one propose to themselves those who have excelled in their Profession not so much to follow as to outstrip them Alexander wept not that he saw Achilles in the Tomb but to see himself so little known in the world in comparison of Achilles Nothing inspires more Ambition than the fame of another's Reputation That which stisles envy gives breath to courage MAXIME LXXVI Not to be always in the jocose humour Prudence appears in seriousness and the serious are more esteemed than the jocose He that drolls always is never a thorough-pac'd man We use these men as we do liars not believing what one nor the other says jeasting being no less suspected than lying It is never known when they speak with judgment which is the same as if they had none at all There is nothing more unpleasant than a continual pleasantness By endeavouring to purchase the Reputation of being pleasant one loses the advantage of being thought wise Some minutes are to be allowed to mirth and the rest to seriousness MAXIME LXXVII To be company for all sorts of men He is a wise Proteus that is holy with the holy learned with the learned serious with the serious and jovial with the merry That is the way to gain all hearts similitude being the bond of good will To discern tempers and by a politick transformation to suit the humour and character of every one is a secret absolutely necessary for those who depend on others But that requires a great stock A man who is universal in knowledge and experience has less trouble in doing it MAXIME LXXVIII The art of undertaking to purpose Folly enters always at random for all fools are bold The same ignorance which hinders them at first from considering what is necessary hides from them afterwards the knowledge of the faults which they commit But Wisedom enters with great circumspection Her Fore-runners are reflexion and discretion that scour the roade for her that so she may advance without any danger Discretion condemns all kinds of temerity to a precipice though good fortune sometime justify them One ought to go step by step where he suspects there is any depth It is the part of judgment to try and of Prudence to pursue There are at present great shelves in the commerce of the world We ought therefore to have a care of our soundings MAXIME LXXIX The jovial humour Is rather an accomplishment than a defect when there is no excess in it A grain of mirth seasons all The greatest men as well as others play their frolicks for conciliating the good will of every body but with this difference that they always retain the preference for wisedom and respect to decency Others come off when they are gone too far by a spell of good humour For some things are to be taken laughing and the very same sometimes that others take in good earnest Such a humour is the loadstone of hearts MAXIME LXXX To be carefull to be informed The life of man is almost wholly spent in taking information What we see is the least essential We live upon the credit of others The ear is the second door to truth and the first to lies Commonly truth is seen but it is extraordinary to hear it It seldom comes