# Newsletters > Balthasar Gracian's The Art of Worldly Wisdom >  Aphorism #161 Know your pet Faults.

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Aphorism #161 Know your pet Faults.

The most perfect of men has them, and is either wedded to them or has illicit relations with them. They are often faults of intellect, and the greater this is, the greater they are, or at least the more conspicuous. It is not so much that their possessor does not know them: he loves them, which is a double evil: irrational affection for avoidable faults. They are spots on perfection; they displease the onlooker as much as they please the possessor. ÂTis a gallant thing to get clear of them, and so give play to one's other qualities. For allmen hit upon such a failing, and on going over your qualifications they make a long stay at this blot, and blacken it as deeply as possible in order to cast your other talents into the shade. 


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