Baltasar Gracián - People Quotes

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Some people belong entirely to others … They have not a day, not an hour to call their own, so completely do they give themselves to others. This is true even in matters of understanding. Some people know everything for others and nothing for themselves.

Baltasar Gracián

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

Baltasar Gracián

You have to appear wiser and more prudent than is required by the people you are dealing with if you want to give a high opinion of yourself.

Baltasar Gracián

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

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

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

Baltasar Gracián