Knowledge has a purpose. Wise people arm themselves with tasteful and elegant erudition—a practical and expert knowledge of what is going on, no common gossip. They possess a copious store of wise and witty sayings, and of noble deeds, and know how to employ them at the right moment. Often, more is taught by a jest than by the most serious teaching. Knowledge gained in conversation can be of more help than the seven arts**, however liberal.

THE ART OF WORLDLY WISDOM BY BALTHASAR GRACIAN
TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH JACOBS 1892

**The Seven Liberal Arts, being grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy.