# Newsletters > Balthasar Gracian's The Art of Worldly Wisdom >  Aphorism #298 Three Things go to a Prodigy.

## Admin

Aphorism #298 Three Things go to a Prodigy.

They are the choicest gifts of Heaven's prodigality--a fertile genius, a profound intellect, a pleasant and refined taste. To think well is good, to think right is better: Âtis the understanding of the good. It will not do for the judgment to reside in the backbone: it would be of more trouble than use. To think aright is the fruit of a reasonable nature. At twenty the will rules; at thirty the intellect; at forty the judgment. There are minds that shine in the dark like the eyes of the lynx, and are most clear where there is most darkness. Others are more adapted for the occasion: they always hit on that which suits the emergency:such a quality produces much and good; a sort of fecund felicity. In the meantime good taste seasons the whole of life. 


More...

----------

