Allow yourself some forgivable sin. Some such carelessness is often the greatest recommendation of talent. For envy causes ostracism, most envenomed when most polite. Envy counts every perfection as a failing and that it has no faults itself. Being perfect in all envy condemns perfection in all. It becomes an Argus, all eyes for imperfection, if only for its own consolation.* Blame is like the lightning—it hits the highest. Let Homer nod now and then and affect some negligence in valor or in intellect—not in prudence—so as to disarm malevolence, or at least to prevent its bursting with its own venom. You thus leave your cape on the horns of envy in order to save your immortality.**
THE ART OF WORLDLY WISDOM BY BALTHASAR GRACIAN
TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH JACOBS 1892