Baltasar Gracián Quotes

104 Sourced Quotes

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

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

Baltasar Gracián
Knowing how to keep a friend is more important than gaining a new one.

Baltasar Gracián
When you counsel someone, you should appear to be reminding him of something he had forgotten, not of the light he was unable to see.

Baltasar Gracián
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 Gracián
Many pleasant things are better when they belong to someone else. … When things belong to others, we enjoy them twice as much, without the risk of losing them, and with the pleasure of novelty.

Baltasar Gracián
Not believing others implies that you yourself are deceitful. The liar suffers twice: he neither believes nor is believed.

Baltasar Gracián
Never risk your reputation on a single trial, because if it does not turn out well, the damage will be irreparable.

Baltasar Gracián
A brand new mediocrity is thought more of than accustomed excellence.

Baltasar Gracián
Those who want to look like hard workers give the impression that they aren't up to their jobs.

Baltasar Gracián
To hear a prince's secrets is not a privilege but a burden. Many smash the mirror that reminds them of their ugliness. They cannot stand to see those who saw them.

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

Baltasar Gracián
The one rule for pleasing: whet the appetite, keep people hungry.

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

Baltasar Gracián
The sage has one advantage: he is immortal. If this is not his century, many others will be.

Baltasar Gracián
The right kind of leisure is better than the wrong kind of work.

Baltasar Gracián
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. This rule does not hold true for bad things: when an evil has been exaggerated, its reality makes people applaud. What was feared as ruinous comes to seem tolerable.

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

Baltasar Gracián
For a thing to remain undone nothing more is needed than to think of it done.

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

Baltasar Gracián
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 Gracián
Mediocrity obtains more with application than superiority without it.

Baltasar Gracián
The wise are always impatient, for he that increases knowledge increases impatience of folly.

Baltasar Gracián
It is profound philosophy to sound the depths of feeling and distinguish traits of character. Men must be studied as deeply as books.

Baltasar Gracián
Watchfulness is the only guard against cunning. Be intent on his intentions. Many succeed in making others do their own affairs, and unless you possess the key to their motives you may at any moment be forced to take their chestnuts out of the fire to the damage of your own fingers.

Baltasar Gracián
You may be obliged to wage war, but not to use poisoned arrows.

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

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

Baltasar Gracián
It is only by mature meditation on the possibilities and probabilities of future events — that we can elude the tortuous troubles of the tomorrows.

Baltasar Gracián
Know how to use evasion. That is how smart people get out of difficulties.

Baltasar Gracián