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Put up with Fools. The wise are always impatient, for he that increases knowledge increase impatience of folly. Much knowledge is difficult to satisfy. The first great rule of life, according to Epictetus, is to put up with things: he makes that the moiety of wisdom. To put up with all the varieties of folly would need much patience. We often have to put up with most from those on whom we most depend: a useful lesson in self-control. Out of patience comes forth peace, the priceless boon which is the happiness of the world. But let him that bath no power of patience retire within himself, though even there he will have to put up with himself.

Put up with Fools. The wise are always impatient, for he that increases knowledge increase impatience of folly. Much knowledge is difficult to satisfy. The first great rule of life, according to Epictetus, is to put up with things: he makes that the moiety of wisdom. To put up with all the varieties of folly would need much patience. We often have to put up with most from those on whom we most depend: a useful lesson in self-control. Out of patience comes forth peace, the priceless boon which is the happiness of the world. But let him that bath no power of patience retire within himself, though even there he will have to put up with himself.

Approximate author period: c. 1630 AD · renaissance

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Baltasar Gracián
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1630 AD · renaissance
author lifetime midpoint (1601–1658); not quotation composition date
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1892 English translation) (1892 AD)

Main maxims, complete printed maxim clix; Joseph Jacobs translation; London: Macmillan and Co., Limited,1892 (source title page supplies bracketed year)

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.