Some displease when attempting to oblige, because they take no account of varieties of taste. What is flattery to one is an offence to another, and in attempting to be useful one may become insulting... He who knows not another's taste, knows not how to please him.
Baltasar Gracián, 1647 (tr. Joseph Jacobs, 1892)
A gift, a favour, or a kindness aimed by your own taste rather than the receiver's often lands as the opposite of what you intended. What delights one person offends another, and the well-meant gesture that ignores this can insult where it meant to please. The costly part is that you lose twice: the effort of the gift and the gratitude it should have earned, because you steered by your own compass instead of theirs. Pleasing someone requires knowing what they actually value, not what you would value in their place. This applies to praise, help, presents, and advice alike. The person who does not know another's taste does not know how to please them, however generous the intention, and intention is not what the receiver actually feels on the other end of it.
Practice
- Aim the favour by the receiver's taste, not your own; the gift that suits you and not them insults where it meant to please (maxim 214 reads what people actually want).
- Learn what a person genuinely values before you try to please them; generosity aimed by the wrong compass lands as an offence.
- Notice the double loss; the misjudged gift costs you the effort and the thanks both, so the knowing is worth the trouble.
Use this when
- Use this before giving gifts, praise, or help, especially across differences in taste, culture, or temperament.
- Use it in persuasion; framing your case in what you find compelling, rather than what they do, is the same compass error (maxim 144 leads with their interest).
Ignore this when
- Don't overthink every kindness into paralysis; most people forgive a well-meant miss, and the rule is a caution, not a freeze.
- Don't abandon your own judgment entirely to please; matching their taste is for gifts and favours, not for truths they need to hear (maxim 210 still tells the hard truth).
A picture of it
Two colleagues want to reward the same hardworking employee. The first gives what he himself would want, a loud public commendation at the all-hands, and is baffled when the intensely private employee is mortified rather than pleased. The second has noticed that this person values time over recognition, and grants her a Friday afternoon off instead, which lands exactly as intended. Same generosity, same employee. One aimed the gift by his own compass and lost both the gift and the thanks; the other read her taste and pleased her with less effort than the failed grand gesture had cost.
The gift aimed by your taste, not theirs, insults where it meant to please. Know what they value, or your generosity is wasted twice.