Aphorism #35 Think over Things, most over the most Important.

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Aphorism #35 Think over Things, most over the most Important.

All fools come to grief from want of thought. They never see even the half of things, and as they do not observe their own loss or gain, stillless do they apply any diligence to them. Some make much of what imports little and little of much, always weighing in the wrong scale. Many never lose their common sense, because they have none to lose. There are matters which should be observed with the closest attention of the mind, and thenceforth kept in its lowest depths. The wise man thinks over everything, but with a difference, most profoundly where there is some profound difficulty, and thinks that perhaps there is more in it than he thinks. Thus his comprehension extends as far as his apprehension.

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[Jane Jane]

I like that;"his comprehension reaches as far as his apprehension."
It reminds me of writing.If you get a great idea and are in one of those rare moods that allow you to sit down and pen a story just like that you have done a great thing. But to leave it like that and then send it to the publisher would be such a shame. For surely you will awaken one night and in a panic realize how absurd some of the word pictures were, or how sloppy some of the sentences. And that will be the way the person that reads your work will see you. How much better to have gone back every day for a month and read it and tightened it up and reflected on the whole of the picture and at the end of that month sent it on to the publishing house. Then if it was accepted the very best that was in you is what they will see. Your fear of looking the fool and acting upon it produced good results.
Yes I very much like this bit. I should have been thrilled to have walked on the same earth as Gracian, a little behind him, who am I, and listened to him and stored these words deep into my heart and pondered them and acted upon them little by little.