37．准备一些讥诮话，并善加利用

准备一些讥诮话，并善加利用。人际交往中，此点最奥妙。有的讥诮话常常用来探测别人的情绪，它往往是刺探人心的最敏锐的试金石。有的话恶毒、粗野，因深染妒忌之气或激情之毒，它猛一出现可立马摧毁所有的好感和尊重。就是被这种话稍稍刺激，许多人和尊长或下属再不亲密——他们原本亲密无间，众人的暗讽和一些人的恶意都不能动摇他们的关系。有的讥诮话可以起到好的作用，巩固和提高人的名望。不管怎样，他人越有奸计，我们越要加倍小心，敏锐且有预见性地把它化解掉。知晓他人的恶意，本身就是一种防备——能够被预见的一击常常打不中目标。

37．Keep a store of sarcasms, and know how to use them

Keep a store of sarcasms, and know how to use them. This is the point of greatest tact in human intercourse. Such sarcasms are often thrown out to test men's moods, and by their means one often obtains the most subtle and penetrating touchstone of the heart. Other sarcasms are malicious, insolent, poisoned by envy or envenomed by passion, unexpected flashes which destroy at once all favour and esteem. Struck by the slightest word of this kind, many fall away from the closest intimacy with superiors or inferiors which could not be the slightest shaken by a whole conspiracy of popular insinuation or private malevolence. Other sarcasms, on the other hand, work favourably, confirming and assisting one's reputation. But the greater the skill with which they are launched, the greater the caution with which they should be received and the foresight with which they should he foreseen. For here a knowledge of the evil is in itself a means of defence, and a shot foreseen always misses its mark.