# Newsletters > Balthasar Gracian's The Art of Worldly Wisdom >  Aphorism #135 Do not nourish the Spirit of Contradiction.

## Admin

Aphorism #135 Do not nourish the Spirit of Contradiction.

It only proves you foolish or peevish, and prudence should guard against this strenuously. To find difficulties in everything may prove you clever, but such wrangling writes you down a fool. Such folk make a mimic war out of the most pleasant conversation, and in this way act as enemies towards their associates rather than towards those with whom they do not consort. Grit grates most in delicacies, and so does contradiction in amusement. They are both foolish and cruel who yoke together the wild beast and the tame. 


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