The tepid Yes of a remarkable man is worth more than all the applause of the vulgar: you cannot make a meal off the smoke of chaff. The wise speak with understanding and their praise gives permanent satisfaction... Some strive to fill their stomach albeit only with the breath of the mob.
Baltasar Gracián, 1647 (tr. Joseph Jacobs, 1892)
Not all approval is worth the same, and the wise learn to weight it by the judgment behind it. A measured, even lukewarm approval from a genuinely discerning person is worth more than the loudest applause of a crowd that does not really understand what it is cheering, because the crowd's praise is smoke you cannot feed on while the expert's praise is substance that satisfies and endures. The pull toward mass approval is strong, since it is louder and more immediately gratifying, but chasing the breath of the mob leaves you empty. The counsel is to seek and value the good opinion of people who actually know, to orient your ambition toward the judgment of the few who can tell, and to hold their tepid Yes above the crowd's roar.
Practice
- Weight approval by the judgment behind it; the discerning person's measured Yes is worth more than the crowd's roar (maxim 245 values the honest contradiction too).
- Orient your ambition toward the few who actually understand; their praise satisfies and endures where the mob's is smoke you cannot feed on.
- Resist the pull of mass approval; it is louder and more immediate, and it leaves you empty when the noise fades.
Use this when
- Use this in choosing whose opinion of your work to chase; the expert's judgment is the nourishing kind, the crowd's the hollow.
- Use it to steady yourself against the hunger for popularity; one remarkable person's respect outweighs a stadium of the undiscerning.
Ignore this when
- Don't dismiss broad approval where it is genuinely earned and relevant; some work is rightly judged by the many (maxim 270 warns against condemning what pleases all).
- Don't use "men of sense" as an excuse for an elitism that ignores real feedback from ordinary people; the point is judgment, not status.
A picture of it
Craving the applause of the crowd, a young writer chases viral approval, and gets it, and finds it evaporates by the next morning leaving nothing behind, smoke she cannot make a meal of. A single measured note of respect from a writer she deeply admires, by contrast, sustains her for a year. She reorients: writing for the judgment of the few who actually understand the craft rather than the many who merely react, and her work deepens accordingly. The crowd's roar had filled her stomach with the breath of the mob; one discerning Yes turned out to be the only praise that fed her.
One discerning Yes outweighs the crowd's roar. Chase the judgment of the few who understand, because the applause of the many is smoke.