The Art of Worldly Wisdom(83)

Allow Yourself some venial Fault. Some such carelessness is often the greatest recommendation of talent. For envy exercises ostracism, most envenomed when most polite. Envy counts perfection as a failing that it has no faults; for being perfect in all envy condemns it in all. It becomes an Argus, all eyes for imperfection, only for its own consolation. Blame is like the lightning — it hits the highest. Let Homer nod now and then and affect some negligence in valor or in intellect — not in prudence — so as to disarm malevolence, or at least to prevent its bursting with its own venom. You thus leave your cloak on the horns of Envy in order to save your immortality.