Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	company_n	conversation_n	great_a	70	3	2.1578	3	false

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

resolution If the matter be to give the gift is more esteemed because of the discerning of him that gives it than for the pleasure of not having expected it What hath been desired hath always been most esteemed If it be a thing to be refused time facilitates the manner of it by letting the No ripen untill the season be come Besides most commonly so soon as the first heat of desire is over the rigour of a denial is taken with indifference They who demand with speed are to be heard at leisure That 's the true way to avoid being surprized MAXIME CXXXIII Rather to be a Fool with all Men than Wise all alone For if all be such there is nothing to be lost cry Politicians whereas if Wisedom be singular it will pass for folly Custome then is to be followed Sometimes to know nothing or at least to seem so is the greatest knowledge We must of necessity live with others and the ignorant are most numerous To live alone one must hold much of the Nature of God or to be altogether of that of Beasts But for qualifying the Aphorism I would say Rather Wise with others than a Fool without Company Some affect to be singular in Chimera's MAXIME CXXXIV To have a double portion of the things that are necessary for life Is to live doubly We must not restrict our selves to one thing onely even though it be excellent All things ought to be double and especially that which is usefull and delightfull The Moon that changes so often is not so variable as the will of man so fickle is that same will We ought therefore to put a barriere to our inconstancy Take it then for a chief rule of the art of living to have in a double portion all that serves for convenience As Nature hath given us pairs of the Members which are most necessary and most exposed to danger so ought Art to double the things whereon the happiness of life depends MAXIME CXXXV Not to have a spirit of Contradiction For that 's the way to become ridiculous nay and insupportable Wisedom will never fail to conspire against that Spirit It 's to be ingenious to find difficulties in all things but it is foolish to be an Opiniatour Such men turn the sweetest conversation into a skirmish and are by consequent greater Enemies to their Friends than to those that frequent not their company The more savoury the piece of fish is that we put into our mouth the more we find the bone that gets betwixt our teeth Contradiction hath the same effect in pleasant Conversation They are Fools and fantastical ones that are not satisfied to be Beasts unless they be wild Beasts MAXIME CXXXVI To take things aright and presently to nick the point Many fetch a tedious compass of words without ever coming to the knot of the business they make a thousand turnings and windings that tire themselves and others without ever arriving at the point of importance And that proceeds from the confusion of their understanding which cannot clear it self They lose time and patience in what ought to be let alone and then they have no more to bestow upon what they have omitted MAXIME CXXXVII The Wise Man is sufficient for himself A Grecian Sage was to himself in stead of all things and all that he had was always with him If it be true that an universal Friend is sufficient to render one as contented as if he possessed Rome and all the rest of the Universe be thine own Friend and thou mayst live all alone What more can be wanting to thee if thou hast no sweeter conversation nor greater pleasure than with thy self thou wilt onely depend upon thy self for it is a sovereign bliss to be like the Sovereign Being He that can so live all alone will hold nothing of the Beast but much of the Wise Man and all of God MAXIME CXXXVIII The Art to let things go as they can go especially when the Sea is tempestuous There are Tempests and Hurricanes in the life of man It is Prudence to put into a Haven to let them blow over Most commonly the Remedies increase the Evil. When the Sea of humours is in agitation let Nature work if it be the Sea of Manners leave it to Morality There is as much skill required in a Physician in not prescribing as in prescribing and sometimes the excellency of the Art consists in applying no Remedy The way then to calm popular gusts is to be quiet Then to yield to the times will get the victory afterwards A Well will be troubled if it be in the least stirred and its water becomes clear again by ceasing to dabble in it There is no better remedy for some disorders than to let them alone For at long run they stop of themselves MAXIME CXXXIX To know unlucky days For there are some wherein nothing will succeed It is to no purpose to change the Game the luck will still be the same At the second bout we are to take heed if luck be for us or against us Understanding hath its days For no man was ever alike able at all hours There is good luck in reasoning truly as there is in writing a Letter well All perfections have their season and beauty is not always in its quarter Discretion sometimes belies it self now in ceding and by and by in exceeding In fine to succeed well one must have his day As all things succeed ill to some so every thing prospers with others and that too with less pains and care and some find their business ready done to their hand Wit hath its days Genius its Character and all things their star When it is your day you are not to lose a minute But a prudent man ought not positively to pronounce that one day is happy because of his good success nor that another is unlucky because of his bad the one being perhaps but the effect of chance and the other of mistimeing MAXIME CXL To hit at first upon the best of every thing Is the best mark of a good discerning The Bee goes immediately to the sweet that it may have whereof to make honey and the Waspe to the bitter to suck in poison It is so in discernings the one sticks to the best and the other to the worst In all things there is somewhat that is good and especially in a book which commonly is made with study Some are of so aukward a mind that amongst a thousand perfections they 'll hit upon the onely fault that is to be found and speak of nothing else as if they were onely cut out for common sewers of the filth of the will and wit of others and for keeping a Register of all the faults which they see That is rather the punishment of their bad discerning than the exercise of their subtilty They spend their life ill because they onely feed on naughty things Happier are they who amongst a thousand faults at first discover a

able to hide ones own is to get the superiority over another To discover ones thought is to open the gate of the fort of the mind Here it is that politick Enemies give the assault and most frequently with success too When once the passions are known all the avenues and Sally-ports of the will are known and by consequent it may be commanded upon any occasion A complete man must then in the first place apply himself to the subduing of his passions and then to the dissembling of them so artfully that no spie can ever be able to unmask his thought This Maxime teaches one to become an able man when he is not and so cunningly to hide all his imperfections that all the sharp-sighted spies of another man's road lose their way in seeking it That Catholick Amazon of Sapin he speaks of Queen Isabelle Wife to Ferdinand may serve as a pattern in that art When she was to be brought to bed she shut her self up in the darkest and most secret place of her Palace that by a veil of darkness she might cover the sower faces and distorted looks that might be forced from her in the agony of her labour and hinder the shrieks and complainings that might escape her in the extremity of pain from coming to peoples ears If she observed so great measures of decency and majesty on such occasions wherein every thing is excusable how carefull must she have been in those where her Reputation was to be maintained MAXIME XCIX Reality and appearance Things are not taken for what they are but for what they appear to be There is scarcely any one that sees into the inside most part of men content themselves with shews It is not enough to have a good intention if the action look ill MAXIME C. The Man undeceived The Christian Sage The Courtly Philosopher It is fit to be so but not to appear to be so and far less to affect to be thought so Though to Philosophize be the most worthy exercise of the wise yet it is now a-days out of fashion The learning of able men is despised Seneca having introduced it into Rome it was sometime in vogue at Court and at present it passes there for folly But Prudence and a good mind are not fed with prejudice MAXIME CI. One part of the World laughs at the other and both laugh at their common folly Every thing is good or bad according to the whimsey of People That Fool is insupportable who would have all things go according to his fancy Perfections depend not upon one single approbation There are as many Opinions as Faces and as great difference amongst the one as the other There is no fault without an adherent and thou oughtest not to be discouraged if what thou doest pleases not some seeing there will always be others who will value it But be not proud of the approbation of these since you will be still exposed to the censure of others The rule whereby to know what deserves esteem is the approbation of men of worth and of such as are acknowledegdly capable of being good judges of the thing The civil life moves not upon one single opinion nor upon one single custome MAXIME CII A stomach that can well receive the large mouth-fulls of Fortune A great stomach is not the least part of the body of Prudence A large capacity hath need of great parts Prosperities cumber not him who deserves greater What cloys some raises an appetite in others There are many who receive prejudice from all juicy food because they are of a weak Constitution and are neither born nor bred up for so high employments The commerce of the world is bitter to their taste and the steams of their vain-glory which mount up to their brain occasion dangerous giddinesses high places make their heads to swim they cannot hold themselves because their fortune cannot hold within them Let a man of Brains then shew that he has still a place left to lodge a greater fortune in and use all his industry to avoid every thing that may give the least sign of a low courage MAXIME CIII Every one is to keep the grandeur that is proper for his state Let all thy actions proportionably to thy condition be the actions if not of a King at least worthy of a King That 's to say carry Royally as much as thy fortune can allow Let there be grandeur in thine actions elevation in thy thoughts to the end that if thou be not a King in reality thou mayst be one in merit For true Royalty consists in Vertue He has no reason to envy the grandeur who may be the model thereof But it concerns those chiefly who are upon the Throne or who approach near to it to make some provision of true superiority that 's to say of the qualities of majesty rather than to please themselves with the Ceremonies which vanity and luxury have introduced They ought to prefer the solidity of substance before the emptiness of Ostentation MAXIME CIV To examine the nature of businesses Every employment hath its way he must be an essay-master that can judge the difference of them Some employments require valour others quickness some demand onely probity and others again Artifice The first are more easie and the others more difficult to be discharged For performing the first good natural ability is sufficient whereas for the others all application and vigilance is too little It is a very painfull office to have the government of men but much more to have the conduct of Fools and Beasts A double portion of sense is needfull for ordering of those that have none That is an insupportable employment which requires a man's whole labour is stinted to hours and hath always the same thing to doe Those are much better wherein variety concurs with importance seeing change delights the mind But the best of all are such which are least dependant or whose dependance is most remote and that is the worst which when we come out of it obliges us to render an account to rigorous Judges and especially when it is to God MAXIME CV Not to be tedious A man that hath but one business or he that hath always the same thing to say is commonly tedious Brevity is fitter for negotiation It gains by delighting what it loses by sparing What is good is doubly good if it be short and in like manner what is bad is less so if there be little of it Spirits operate better than mingled Potions It is a known truth that a great talker is seldom a man of parts There are some men that give more trouble than honour to the Universe They are clouts thrown out into the Streets which every one kicks out of his way A discreet man ought to have special care not to be troublesome especially to men of much business For it were better to be uneasie to all the rest of the world than to one of those What is well