# Newsletters > Balthasar Gracian's The Art of Worldly Wisdom >  Aphorism #141 Do not listen to Yourself.

## Admin

Aphorism #141 Do not listen to Yourself.

It is no use pleasing yourself if you do not please others, and as a rule general contempt is the punishment for self-satisfaction. Theattention you pay to yourself you probably owe to others. To speak and at the same time listen to yourself cannot turn out well. If to talk to oneself when alone is folly, it must be doubly unwise to listen to oneself in the presence of others. It is a weakness of the great to talk with a recurrent "as I was saying" and "eh?" which bewilders their hearers. At every sentence they look for applause or flattery, taxing the patience of the wise. So too the pompous speak with an echo, and as their talk can only totter on with the aid of stilts, at every word they need the support of a stupid "bravo!" 


More...

----------

