Baltasar Gracian Quotes

Never lose your self-respect, nor be too familiar with yourself when you are alone. Let your integrity itself be your own standard of rectitude, and be more indebted to the severity of your own judgment of yourself than to all external percepts. Desist from unseemly conduct, rather out of respect for your own virtue than for the strictures of external authority.

No' and 'Yes' are words quickly said, but they need a great amount of thought before you utter them.

Know how to choose well. Most of life depends thereon. It needs good taste and correct judgment, for which neither intellect nor study suffices.

Wisdom and courage make mutual contributions to greatness.

Know your unlucky days, for the exist. Nothing will work out right and, even though you change your game, your bad luck will remain.

Life is arduous without any breaks, like a long journey without any inns. Learned variety makes it pleasant. Spend the first part of a fine life in communication with the dead. We are born to know and to know ourselves, and books reliably turn us into people. Spend the second part with the living: see and examine all that's good in the world. Not everything can be found in one country; the universal Father has shared out his gifts and sometimes endows the ugliest with the most. Let the third stage be spent entirely with yourself: the ultimate happiness, to philosophize.

At twenty a man is a peacock, at thirty a lion, at forty a camel, at fifty a serpent, at sixty a dog, at seventy an ape, at eighty a nothing at all.

We live by information, not by sight.

It is a great misfortune to be of use to nobody; scarcely less to be of use to everybody.

Politeness is the chief sign of culture.

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the other one.

Have friends. 'Tis a second existence.

Two kinds of people are good at foreseeing danger: those who have learned at their own expense, and the clever people who learn a great deal at the expense of others.

Nothing arouses ambition so much in the heart as the trumpet-clang of another's fame.

Keep to yourself the final touches of your art.

The truths that matter most to us come always half spoken.

A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.

Keep the extent of your abilities unknown.The wise man does not allow his knowledge and abilities to be sounded to the bottom, if he desires to be honored at all. He allows you to know them but not to comprehend them. No one must know the extent of his abilities, lest he be disappointed. No one ever has an opportunity of fathoming him entirely. For guesses and doubts about the extent of his talents arouse more veneration than accurate knowledge of them, be they ever so great.

Exaggeration is a branch of lying.

Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than grave teaching.

Some would be sages if they did not believe they were so already.

Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem. Most things are judged by their jackets.

A gilded No is more satisfactory than a dry Yes.

Don't take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent has taken the right side.

Not he that adorns but he that adores makes a divinity.

Hear, see, and be silent.

Folly consists not in committing Folly, but in being incapable of concealing it. All men make mistakes, but the wise conceal the blunders they have made, while fools make them public. Reputation depends more on what is hidden than on what is seen. If you can't be good, be careful.

Cultivate those who can teach you.

Wise men appreciate all men, for they see the good in each and know how hard it is to make anything good.

To be at ease is better than to be at business. Nothing really belongs to us but time, which even he has who has nothing else.

It is a novel kind of supremacy, the best that life can offer, to have as servants by skill those who by nature are our masters.

Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.

If there is nothing left to desire, there is everything to fear, an unhappy state of happiness.

Many owe their greatness to their enemies. Flattery is fiercer than hatred, for hatred corrects the faults flattery had disguised.

The worthless usually live long.

When you find Fortune favorable, stride boldly forward, for she favors the bold, and being a woman, the young.

The more merit, the less affection.

Do not be held a cheat, even though it is impossible to
live today without being one. Let your greatest cunning lie in covering up what
looks like cunning.

Don't lie, but don't tell the whole truth.

If you cannot make knowledge your servant, make it your friend.

Every fool stands convinced; and everyone convinced is a fool. The faultier a person's judgement the firmer their convictions.

Keep expectation alive. Keep stirring it up. Let much promise more, and great deeds herald greater.

Cautious silence is the refuge of good sense

There is no beauty unaided, no excellence that does not sink to the barbarous, unless saved by art.

Nature often lets us down when we most need her; let us turn to art.

We have more days to live through than pleasures. Be slow in enjoyment, quick at work, for men see work ended with pleasure, pleasure ended with regret.

Put a grain of boldness into everything you do.

Little said is soon amended. There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one.

Fortunate people often have very favorable beginnings and very tragic endings. What matters isn't being applauded when you arrive - for that is common - but being missed when you leave.

We often have to put up with most from those on whom we most depend.

Even monarchs have need of authors, and fear their pens more than ugly women the painter's pencil.

A feigned doubt is curiosity's subtlest picklock, enabling it to learn whatever it wants. Even where learning is concerned, contradiction is the pupil's strategy to make the teacher put all their effort into explaining and justifying the truth: a mild challenge leads to consummate instruction.

Censure is like the lightning which strikes the highest mountains.

You should aim to be independent of any one vote, of any one fashion, of any one century.

Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment.

The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.

A man is judged by his friends, for the wise and the foolish have never agreed.

Only Truth can give true reputation: only reality can be of real profit.

Nor should we lose heart if something doesn't please someone, for there'll always be someone else it does.

Know how to keep anticipation alive: always strive to feed it, by letting the much promise more, and the one achievement be the announcement only of a greater. Put not all your reserves into the first throw; the great trick is to dole out strength, and to dole out mind, in such a fashion as to bring forward increasingly the fulfillment of what was expected of you.

Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.

The happy are an exception who enjoy innocently their simple happiness.

What is not seen is as if it was not. Even the Right does not receive proper consideration if it does not seem right.

It is better to have too much courtesy than too little, provided you are not equally courteous to all, for that would be injustice.

Few are the friends of a mans self, most those of his circumstances.

Treat your enemies with courtesy, and you'll see how valuable it really is. It costs little but pays a nice dividend: those who honor are honored. Politeness and a sense of honor have this advantage: we bestow them on others without losing a thing.

The greatest service you can render someone else is helping him help himself.

Nothing is good for him for whom nothing is bad.

Mediocrity obtains more with application than superiority without it.

Hope is a great falsifier. Let good judgment keep her in check.

Exaggeration is a prodigality of the judgment which shows the narrowness of one's knowledge or one's taste.

A man should not employ all his capacity and power at once and on every occasion. Even in knowledge there should be a rearguard, so that your resources are doubled. One must always have something to resort to when there is fear of a defeat. The reserve is of more importance than the attacking force: for it is distinguished for valour and reputation.

When desire dies,fear is born

Always act as if you were seen.

Harness the imagination: Sometimes curbing her, sometimes giving her rein, for she is the whole of happiness. She sets to rights even the understanding. She sinks to tyranny, not satisfied with mere faith, but demanding works. Thus she becomes the mistress of life itself. She does so with pleasure or with pain, according to the nonsense presented. She makes people contented or discontented with themselves. By dangling before some nothing but the specter of their eternal suffering, she becomes the scourge of these fools. To others she shows nothing but fortune and romance, while merrily laughing. Of all this she is capable if not held in check by the wisest of wills.

Tis much to gain universal admiration; more, universal love.

Nature and art: The material and the workmanship. There is no beauty unaided, no excellence that does not sink to the barbarous, unless saved by art: It redeems the bad and perfects the good. Because nature commonly forsakes us at her best, take refuge in art. The best in nature is raw without art, and the excellent is lacking if it lacks culture. Without cultivation everyone is a clown and needs polish, fine attributes notwithstanding.

To keep is more important than to make friends.

A bad manner spoils everything, even reason and justice; a good one supplies everything, gilds a No, sweetens a truth, and adds a touch of beauty to old age itself.

Don't express your ideas too clearly. Most people think little of what they understand, and venerate what they do not.

Never compete with someone who has nothing to lose.

Nature scarcely ever gives us the very best; for that we must have recourse to art.

None is so perfect that he does not need at times the advice of others.

Deceit comes in through the ears, but usually leaves through the eyes.

Know how to ask. There is nothing more difficult for some people, nor for others, easier.

Do not show your wounded finger for everything will knock up against it.

Though such authority and respect shouldn't be handed to all and sundry, have in caution's innermost room a confidant, a faithful mirror, whose correction you value when disillusionment is necessary.

Do not make mistakes about character. Better be cheated in the price than in the quality of goods.

Life doesn't depend on any one opinion, any one custom, or any one century.

Rivalry discovers that courtesy overlooks.

Never participate in the secrets of those above you; you think you share the fruit, and you share the stones - the confidence of a prince is not a grant, but a tax

Evil report carries further than any applause.

The greatest fool is he who thinks he is not one and all others are.

Many have had their greatness made for them by their enemies.

Everyone could have been pre-eminent at something, if they had been aware of their best quality.

True knowledge lies in knowing how to live.

The sage never seems to know his own merits, for only by not noticing them can you call others' attention to them.

He that has satisfied his thirst turns his back on the well.

Truth always lags behind, limping along on the arm of Time.

Things are done quickly enough if done well. If just quickly done they can be quickly undone.