Baltasar Gracián Quotes

104 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

Baltasar Gracián
The wise physician, if he has failed to cure, looks out for someone who, under the name of consultation, may help him carry out the corpse.

Baltasar Gracián
One deceit needs many others, and so the whole house is built in the air and must soon come to the ground

Baltasar Gracián
Make your friends your teachers and mingle the pleasures of conversation with the advantages of instruction.

Baltasar Gracián
If you are wise, live as you can; if you cannot, live as you would.

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

Baltasar Gracián
Excellence resides in quality, not in quantity. The best is always few and rare; much lowers value.

Baltasar Gracián
Everything foreign is respected, partly because it comes from afar, partly because it is ready made and perfect.

Baltasar Gracián
Man is born a barbarian, and only raises himself above the beast by culture.

Baltasar Gracián
Wisdom does not trust to probabilities; it always marches in the midday light of reason.

Baltasar Gracián