Baltasar Gracian Quotes
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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.
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Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.
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Always leave something to wish for; otherwise you will be miserable from your very happiness.
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Aspire rather to be a hero than merely appear one.
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Little said is soon amended. There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one.
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Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem. Most things are judged by their jackets.
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Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than grave teaching.
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True knowledge lies in knowing how to live.
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Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil.
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Hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one.
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Don't express your ideas too clearly. Most people think little of what they understand, and venerate what they do not.
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When desire dies, fear is born.
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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.
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Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.
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He that has satisfied his thirst turns his back on the well.
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One must pass through the circumference of time before arriving at the center of opportunity.
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Hope is a great falsifier. Let good judgment keep her in check.
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There is no revenge like oblivion, for it is the entombment of the unworthy in the dust of their own nothingness.
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Everything foreign is respected, partly because it comes from afar, partly because it is ready made and perfect.
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It is better to have too much courtesy than too little, provided you are not equally courteous to all, for that would be injustice.
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Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment.
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Never have a companion that casts you in the shade.
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Nature scarcely ever gives us the very best; for that we must have recourse to art.
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Let him that hath no power of patience retire within himself, though even there he will have to put up with himself.