The courtiers manual oracle, or, The art of prudence written originally in Spanish by Baltazar Gracian, and now done into English.

About this Item

Title: The courtiers manual oracle, or, The art of prudence written originally in Spanish by Baltazar Gracian, and now done into English.
Author: Gracián y Morales, Baltasar, 1601-1658.
Publication: London :: Printed by M. Flesher, for Abel Swalle ...,; 1685.
Rights/Permissions: To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.
Subject terms: Courts and courtiers.; Maxims.
Link to this Item: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A41733.0001.001
Cite this Item: "The courtiers manual oracle, or, The art of prudence written originally in Spanish by Baltazar Gracian, and now done into English." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A41733.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 14, 2025.

Pages

MAXIME CCLXXXIX.

What most discredits a Man, is to shew that he is man.

He is no longer reckoned Divine, so soon as he is known to have much in him of man. Levity is the greatest counter∣poise of Reputation. As a grave man passes for more than man, so a light shit∣tlecock is hardly reckoned a man. No vice discredits so much as levity, inasmuch as it is diametrically opposed to gravity. A light man cannot be substantial, and especially if he be old, seeing his age re∣quires more Prudence. And though this fault be very common, yet it is strangely derived in every particular person that has it.