Mardy Grothe - Neverisms

When one reads The Art of Worldly Wisdom today, it’s easy to understand why Gracián’s 1647 book had such great appeal to these two intellectual giants. In his presentation of 300 principles about living honorably and effectively, Gracián covered almost every aspect of life, including such predictable problems as insecure superiors, foolish colleagues, and enemies with malevolent motives. Even though The Art of Worldly Wisdom is often called “a book of maxims,” it is clear that the author viewed it as more of a rulebook for living. In laying out his rules, Gracián often spoke exhortatively:

Always act as if others were watching.

Always hold in reserve recourse to something better.

Always have your mouth full of sugar to sweeten your words,

so that even your ill-wishers enjoy them.

If there is too much display today there will be nothing to show tomorrow.

Always have some novelty with which to dazzle.

But it was when Gracián expressed his rules dehortatively that they packed the most punch:

Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.

Never share your secrets with those greater than you.

Never exaggerate. Exaggeration is a species of lying.

Never do anything when you are in a temper,

for you will do everything wrong.

Never risk your reputation on a single shot,

for if you miss the loss is irreparable.

Never open the door to a lesser evil,

for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.

For nearly half a century, I’ve been keeping—and progressively updating—a collection of quotations that remind me of important principles to guide my life. I originally copied them on 3-by-5-inch index cards that I tacked up on walls and bulletin boards, but I eventually transferred them to a computer file that I designated Words to Live By. There are several thousand quotations in my current WTLB file. All figures of speech are represented, including numerous neverisms from such influential thinkers as Albert Einstein:

Never regard study as a duty.

Never do anything against conscience

even if the state demands it.

Never lose a holy curiosity.

The phrasing of this last quotation has always appealed to me, for it suggests an almost religious reverence that Einstein had for open-mindedly exploring every aspect of life. The remark came at the end of a fuller passage that went this way:One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.

Some of the most important words in my WTLB collection have come not from great thinkers or philosophers, but from classic works of fiction:

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.

These words, from William Makepeace Thackeray’s 1847 classic Vanity Fair, are part of a passage that is still worth reading today, a century and a half after it was first written. In a comparison of the gentle and kindly Mrs. Bute Crawley and the contemptuous and ill-mannered Rawdon Crawley, the narrator says:The different conduct of these two people is pointed out respectfully to the attention of persons commencing the world. Praise everybody, I say to such; never be squeamish, but speak out your compliment both point-blank in a man’s face, and behind his back, when you know there is a reasonable chance of his hearing it again. Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.

While the quotations to be found in this chapter may be viewed as examples of advice, it is my belief that they go beyond advice per se and enter into the realm of what used to be called pearls of wisdom. In the next chapter, we’ll turn our attention to advice-only admonitions, but in the remainder of this chapter we’ll continue looking at those that can best be described as words to live by.

Never do harm, and whenever possible do good.ISABEL ALLENDE, from her 2008

memoir The Sum of Our Days

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you

that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.MARCUS AURELIUS

This was an entry in the diary of the most philosophically inclined of all Roman emperors. The personal journal of Marcus Aurelius was discovered after his death at age fifty-eight in A.D. 180, and eventually published under the title Meditations. It went on to become one of history’s most influential books, and almost every world leader has had at least a passing acquaintance with it. It also contains this admonition:

Never let the future disturb you.

You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons

of reason which today arm you against the present.

Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own.J. M. BARRIE, in a 1922 speech

Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life.EDWARD L. BERNAYS, quoted in Are You Happy?,

a 1986 book by Dennis Wholey

When I first came upon this sentiment, I was struck by the intriguing choice of words. But it was only after reading the entire observation that I realized how masterfully Bernays—the father of public relations—had expressed the danger of “either-or” thinking when applied to work and play. Here’s the entire observation (which, by the way, is commonly misattributed to Pablo Picasso):Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard

than anybody expects of you . . .

Never excuse yourself to yourself. Never pity yourself.

Be a hard master to yourself, but lenient to everybody else.HENRY WARD BEECHER,

in an 1878 letter to his son Herbert

In the letter, written as Herbert was leaving home for the first time to take a job, a concerned Beecher also implored his son to work on a problem that had become worrisome:

I beseech you to correct one fault—severe speech of others;

never speak evil of any man, no matter what the facts may be.

Never forget that Life can only be nobly inspired and rightly lived

if you take it bravely, gallantly, as a splendid Adventure,

in which you are setting out into an unknown country,

to face many a danger, to meet many a joy,

to find many a comrade, to win and lose many a battle.ANNIE BESANT, quoted in a 1924 article

in The Theosophist

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom.

One helps you make a living and the other helps you make a life.SANDRA CAREY

If you don’t like it, stop doing it.

Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy.JOHNNY CARSON

Carson offered this advice in a 1976 commencement address at Norfolk High School in Nebraska. Carson, who had graduated from the school in 1943, was thrilled to be invited back to his home town to speak to graduates. His proud parents were in attendance, as was one of his former teachers, Miss Jenny Walker, who had said to him when he was a high school senior, “You have a fine sense of humor and I think you will go far in the entertainment world.” After the speech, Carson took questions from the audience. When asked what he was proudest of, he said, “Giving a commencement address like this has made me as proud as anything I’ve ever done.” As the Q&A session ended and Carson prepared to leave, he was so moved by the prolonged applause, he added one final thought, a lovely expansion on his earlier advice about working only in a job that is enjoyable:If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself. And if you like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined. I thank you all very much.