Arrows pierce the body, insults the soul... It is a great art in life to know how to sell wind. Most things are paid for in words, and by them you can remove impossibilities... Always have your mouth full of sugar to sweeten your words, so that even your ill-wishers enjoy them. To please one must be peaceful.
Baltasar Gracián, 1647 (tr. Joseph Jacobs, 1892)
Words carry more weight than their cost suggests, and how you say a thing often matters more than the thing itself. An insult wounds deeper than a physical blow because it strikes the soul, and by the same logic a gracious word can open doors that force never could. Much of life is in fact paid for in words: courtesy, tact, and the well-turned phrase remove obstacles, create goodwill, and produce cooperation out of nothing, which is the art of selling wind. The counsel is to keep your speech sweet, to have a mouth full of sugar so even those who wish you ill enjoy dealing with you, because sweetness disarms and harshness recruits enemies. This is not empty flattery so much as the discipline of pleasant, peaceful speech as a standing instrument of getting on in the world.
Practice
- Sweeten your speech as a standing habit; much of life is paid for in words, and the gracious phrase removes obstacles force cannot (maxim 210's gilded truth is the same craft).
- Remember that insults wound the soul; a careless harsh word costs more and longer than the momentary satisfaction of it.
- Keep enough sugar that even ill-wishers enjoy dealing with you; sweetness disarms, and to please you must first be peaceful.
Use this when
- Use this everywhere courtesy is cheap and effective, which is nearly everywhere; the pleasant manner is a low-cost, high-return instrument.
- Use it especially with adversaries; sweet dealing disarms them where harshness would only harden them.
Ignore this when
- Don't let sweetness become dishonest flattery or the inability to deliver a hard truth; the sugar coats the message, it does not replace it (maxim 219 keeps the honest reputation).
- Don't sweeten to the point of an insincerity that fools no one; the manner must feel genuine, not oily.
A picture of it
Technically excellent but blunt to the point of abrasive, an engineer keeps losing cooperation he needs, because his correct points arrive as small wounds and people avoid dealing with him. A mentor's advice is not to change his content but his coating: keep a mouth full of sugar, deliver the same truths wrapped in courtesy, make even a disagreement pleasant to receive. The change costs him nothing in substance and transforms his results; the same recommendations, sweetened, are suddenly welcomed and acted on. He had been paying for everything in harsh words and wondering why the price was so high. Sweetened, the same wind sold for far more.
Insults pierce the soul; sweet words open doors. Keep your mouth full of sugar, and even your ill-wishers will enjoy dealing with you.