《智慧书·第四辑·一五一至二百》第32则
A Grain of Boldness in Everything. 'Tis an important piece of prudence. You must moderate your opinion of others so that you may not think so high of them as to fear them. The imagination should never yield to the heart. Many appear great till you know them personally, and then dealing with them does more to disillusionise than to raise esteem. No one o'ersteps the narrow bounds of humanity: all have their weaknesses either in heart or head. Dignity gives apparent authority, which is rarely accompanied by personal power: for Fortune often redresses the height of office by the inferiority of the holder. The imagination always jumps too soon, and paints things in brighter colours than the real: it thinks things not as they are but as it wishes them to be. Attentive experience disillusionised in the past soon corrects all that. Yet if wisdom should not be timorous, neither should folly be rash. And if self-reliance helps the ignorant, how much more the brave and wise?
注释摘要
这则格言从标题到最后一句话，实际上是同一个主张的层层展开：做事、做人、判断局势，都需要加入极小的那么一粒胆魄。葛拉西安把它定性为“审慎的重要一环”，本身就是一个浓缩的悖论——胆魄竟然归属于审慎，而不是归属于勇猛或者鲁莽。他的意思不是说人要变得莽撞，而是说：过度小心、把对方想得太高、把局势想得太吓人，这本身也是一种不审慎，因为它建立在错误的估计之上。 开头的…