41．切勿言过其实

切勿言过其实。细心谨慎的一个重要目的，就是说话不过分使用“最”字，以免违背事实，或是让人对你的判断力产生怀疑。言过其实糟蹋你的判断力，显得你学识浅薄，品位低劣。赞美之辞引来人们的好奇心，好奇心又滋生欲望。待之后人们发现你是在夸大其词时，期望落空，就会有种被欺骗的感觉，于是滋生报复之心，将赞美者和被赞美者一起贬低下去。因此，谨小慎微之人在评价事物时总是很谨慎，宁可言之不足，也不夸大其词。非凡的事物是很少见的，因此，你要节制你的评价。夸大其词近乎说谎，会危及自身声誉，让人对你的品味产生怀疑；更糟糕的是，让人怀疑你的见识。

41．Never exaggerate

Never exaggerate. It is an important object of attention not to talk in superlatives, so as neither to offend against truth nor to give a mean idea of one's understanding. Exaggeration is a prodigality of the judgment which shows the narrowness of one's knowledge or one's taste. Praise arouses lively curiosity, begets desire, and if afterwards the value does not correspond to the price, as generally happens, expectation revolts against the deception, and revenges itself by under-estimating the thing recommended and the person recommending. A prudent man goes more cautiously to work, and prefers to err by understatement than by overstatement. Extraordinary things are rare, therefore moderate your valuation. Exaggeration is a branch of lying, and you lose by it the credit of good taste, which is much, and of good sense, which is more.