The Art of Worldly Wisdom

by Balthasar Gracian

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Genres: Philosophy

276 pages, Hardcover

Published May 23, 2010

Reviews

[Lars · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too many good points in archaic presentation

Most maxims match sophisticated common sense and are obviously correct. However, I am unsure whether the book provides value in addition to this: The are so many similar and overlapping maxims that it is easy to miss something. This is made worse by the archaic, artistic and hard to understand tone in which the maxims are written. If the goal is just the understanding itself, contemporary books are likely more suitable.
The main advantage of this book is the historical context - it is fascinating how similar things were back then.

[jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having completed this book I am undecided what to make of it. The wisdoms are classed as maxims. It makes one think and wonders who is putting these maxims into practise. Maybe if I had tried some of them when I was younger things may have been different but we all have our own personality. Interesting to read and to see Balthasar's viewpoint not sure I agree with all of the maxims whilst others are very intriguing.

[Reading_as_a_pastime]

Finally...