Baltasar Gracian Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Baltasar Gracian.
Famous Quotes By Baltasar Gracian
Know how to play the card of contempt. It is the most politic kind of revenge. For there are many of whom we should have known nothing if their distinguished opponents had taken no notice of them. There is no revenge like oblivion, for it is the entombment of the unworthy in the dust of their own nothingness. — Baltasar Gracian
One should cultivate good habits of memory, for it is capable of making existence a Paradise or an Inferno. — Baltasar Gracian
There are rules to luck, not everything is chance for the wise; luck can be helped by skill. — Baltasar Gracian
Exaggeration is a prodigality of the judgment which shows the narrowness of one's knowledge or one's taste. — Baltasar Gracian
Some friendships are like a marriage, others like an affair; the latter are for pleasure, the former for the abundant success they engender. Few are friends because of you yourself, many of because of your good fortune. A friend's true understanding is worth more than the many good wishes of others. Make friends by choice, then, not by chance. — Baltasar Gracian
Know how to ask. There is nothing more difficult for some people, nor for others, easier. — Baltasar Gracian
Take care to make things turn out well. Some people scruple more over pointing things in the right direction than over successfully reaching their goals. The disgrace of failure outweighs the diligence they showed. A winner is never asked for explanations. — Baltasar Gracian
True friendshipmultiplies the good in life and divides its evils. strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island ... to find one real friend in a lifetime is a good fortune;to keep him is a blessing — Baltasar Gracian
What is not seen is as if it was not. Even the Right does not receive proper consideration if it does not seem right. — Baltasar Gracian
Never risk your reputation on a single shot, for if you miss the loss is irreparable. — Baltasar Gracian
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. — Baltasar Gracian
The more pains you take with a thing, the more should you conceal them, so that it may appear to arise spontaneously from your own natural character. — Baltasar Gracian
There is no better remedy for disorder than to let it runs its course; it will then disappear on its own. — Baltasar Gracian
The sage has one advantage: he is immortal. If this is not his century, many others will be. — Baltasar Gracian
When you find Fortune favorable, stride boldly forward, for she favors the bold, and being a woman, the young. — Baltasar Gracian
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. — Baltasar Gracian
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. — Baltasar Gracian
He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much, and God in everything. — Baltasar Gracian
He who finds Fortune on his side should go briskly ahead, for she is wont to favor the bold. — Baltasar Gracian
To equal a predecessor, one must have twice they worth. — Baltasar Gracian
The passions are the humors of the mind, and the least excess sickens our judgment. If the disease spreads to the mouth, your reputation will be in danger. — Baltasar Gracian
It requires as much caution to tell the truth as to conceal it. — Baltasar Gracian
Say farewell to luck when winning. It is the way of the gamblers of reputation. Quite as important as a gallant advance is a well-planned retreat. Lock up your winnings when they are enough, or when great. Continuous luck is always suspect; more secure is that which changes. Though half bitter and half sweet, it is more satisfying to the taste. The more luck pyramids, the greater the danger of slip and collapse. For luck always compensates her intensity by her brevity. Fortune wearies of carrying anyone long upon her shoulders. — Baltasar Gracian
True knowledge lies in knowing how to live. — Baltasar Gracian
Few are the friends of a mans self, most those of his circumstances. — Baltasar Gracian
Knowledge without courage is sterile. — Baltasar Gracian
Courtesy is the politic witchery of great personages. — Baltasar Gracian
It is a great misfortune to be of use to nobody; scarcely less to be of use to everybody. — Baltasar Gracian
Most do violence to their natural aptitude, and thus attain superiority in nothing. — Baltasar Gracian
Don't show off every day, or you'll stop surprising people. There must always be some novelty left over. The person who displays a little more of it each day keeps up expectations, and no one ever discovers the limits of his talent. — Baltasar Gracian
Admiration is the basis of ignorance. — Baltasar Gracian
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 — Baltasar Gracian
The greatest fool is he who thinks he is not one and all others are. — Baltasar Gracian
Never do anything when you are in a temper, for you will do everything wrong. — Baltasar Gracian
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. — Baltasar Gracian
The truest wild beasts live in the most populous places. — Baltasar Gracian
There must be something good in a thing that pleases so many; even if it cannot be explained, it is certainly enjoyed. — Baltasar Gracian
There is no need to show your ability before everyone. — Baltasar Gracian
Oh life, you should never had begun, but since you did, you should never end — Baltasar Gracian
Many get the repute of being witty but thereby lose the credit of being sensible. Jest has its little hour, seriousness should have all the rest. — Baltasar Gracian
Do not show your wounded finger for everything will knock up against it. — Baltasar Gracian
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. — Baltasar Gracian
Do pleasant things yourself, but unpleasant things through others. — Baltasar Gracian
One must pass through the circumference of time before arriving at the center of opportunity. — Baltasar Gracian
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. — Baltasar Gracian
Beauty and folly are generally companions. — Baltasar Gracian
It is a great deed to leave nothing for tomorrow. — Baltasar Gracian
Everyone could have been pre-eminent at something, if they had been aware of their best quality. — Baltasar Gracian
Do not enter where too much is anticipated. It is the misfortune of the over-celebrated that they cannot measure up to excessive expectations. The actual can never attain the imagined: for to think perfection is easy, but to embody it is most difficult. The imagination weds the wish, and together they always conjure up more than reality can furnish. For however great may be a person's virtues, the will never measure up to what was imagined. When people see themselves cheated in their extravagant anticipations, they turn more quickly to disparagement than to praise. Hope is a great falsifier of the truth; the the intelligence put her right by seeing to it that the fruit is superior to its appetite. You will make a better exit when the actual transcends the imagined, and is more than was expected. — Baltasar Gracian
Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil. — Baltasar Gracian
Attain and maintain a reputation, for it is the usufruct of fame. A stiff climb, for it is the issue of excellence, as rare as mediocrity is common. — Baltasar Gracian
The sage never seems to know his own merits, for only by not noticing them can you call others' attention to them. — Baltasar Gracian
One deceit needs many others, and so the whole house is built in the air and must soon come to the ground — Baltasar Gracian
The wise persono would rather see others needing him than thanking him. — Baltasar Gracian
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. — Baltasar Gracian
An ounce of prudence is worth a pound of cleverness. — Baltasar Gracian
There are certain inessential activities-moths of precious time-and it is worse to busy yourself with the trivial than to do nothing. — Baltasar Gracian
It takes more to make one sage today than it did to make the seven of Greece. And you need more resources to deal with a single person these days than with an entire nation in times past. — Baltasar Gracian
To overvalue something is a form of lying. — Baltasar Gracian
Audacious persons hope to make themselves eternally famous by setting fire to one of the wonders of the world and of the ages. The art of reproving scandal is to take no notice of it, to combat it damages our own case; even if credited it causes discredit, and is a source of satisfaction to our opponent, for this shadow of a stain dulls the lustre of our fame even if it cannot altogether deaden it. — Baltasar Gracian
The sole advantage of power is that you can do more good. — Baltasar Gracian
Nothing is good for him for whom nothing is bad. — Baltasar Gracian
God Himself chasteneth not with a rod but with time. — Baltasar Gracian
Do not commit yourself to anybody or anything, for that is to be a slave, a slave to every man Above all, keep yourself free of commitments and obligations - they are the device of another to get you into his power — Baltasar Gracian
A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends. — Baltasar Gracian
Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy; in the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed. — Baltasar Gracian
Their intrinsic worth is not enough, for not all turn the goods over and look deep. Most run where the crowd is--because the others run — Baltasar Gracian
Wise men appreciate all men, for they see the good in each and know how hard it is to make anything good. — Baltasar Gracian
Honorable beginnings should serve to awaken curiosity, not to heighten people's expectations. We are much better off when reality surpasses our expectations, and something turns out better than we thought it would. — Baltasar Gracian
Never exaggerate. It is a matter of great importance to forego superlatives, in part to avoid offending the truth, and in part to avoid cheapening your judgment. Exaggeration wastes distinction and testifies to the paucity of your understanding and taste. Praise excites anticipation and stimulates desire. Afterwards when value does not measure up to price, disappointment turns against the fraud and takes revenge by cheapening both the appraised and the appraise. For this reason let the prudent go slowly, and err in understatement rather than overstatement. The extraordinary of every kind is always rare, wherefore temper your estimate. — Baltasar Gracian
The true way is the middle one, halfway between deserving a place and pushing oneself into it. — Baltasar Gracian
None is so perfect that he does not need at times the advice of others. — Baltasar Gracian
The crutch of Time accomplishes more than the club of Hercules. — Baltasar Gracian
Cunning grows in deceit at seeing itself discovered, and tries to deceive with truth itself. — Baltasar Gracian
No one demands more caution than a spy, and when someone has the skeleton key to minds, counter him by leaving the key of caution inside, on the other side of the keyhole. — Baltasar Gracian
Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit. — Baltasar Gracian
Even monarchs have need of authors, and fear their pens more than ugly women the painter's pencil. — Baltasar Gracian
The liar suffers twice: he neither believes nor is believed. — Baltasar Gracian
For the advice in a joke is sometimes more useful than the most serious teaching. — Baltasar Gracian
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. — Baltasar Gracian
Quit while you're ahead. All the best gamblers do. — Baltasar Gracian
Many owe their greatness to their enemies. Flattery is fiercer than hatred, for hatred corrects the faults flattery had disguised. — Baltasar Gracian
The most and best of us depend on others; we have to live either among friends or among enemies. — Baltasar Gracian
Many have had their greatness made for them by their enemies. — Baltasar Gracian