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It is a novel kind of supremacy, the best that life can offer, to have as servants by skill those who by nature are our masters.
Baltasar Gracian -
Possession hinders enjoyment. It merely gives you the right to keep things for or from others, and thus you gain more enemies than friends.
Baltasar Gracian
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Help others solve their problems; standing farther away, you can often see matters more clearly than they do. . . The greatest service you can render someone else is helping him or her help themselves.
Baltasar Gracian -
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 Gracian -
Know what is evil, no matter how worshipped it may be. Let the man of sense not mistake it, even when clothed in brocade, or at times crowned in gold, because it cannot thereby hide its hypocrisy, for slavery does not lose its infamy, however noble the master.
Baltasar Gracian -
Every fool stands convinced; and everyone convinced is a fool. The faultier a person's judgement the firmer their convictions.
Baltasar Gracian -
Exaggeration is a prodigality of the judgment which shows the narrowness of one's knowledge or one's taste.
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
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Make your friends your teachers and mingle the pleasures of conversation with the advantages of instruction.
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 -
Wise men appreciate all men, for they see the good in each and know how hard it is to make anything good.
Baltasar Gracian -
One should cultivate good habits of memory, for it is capable of making existence a Paradise or an Inferno.
Baltasar Gracian -
Know how to choose well. Most of life depends thereon. It needs good taste and correct judgment, for which neither intellect nor study suffices.
Baltasar Gracian -
Politeness and a sense of honor have this advantage: we bestow them on others without losing a thing.
Baltasar Gracian
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Some are satisfied to stand politely before the portals of Fortune and to await her bidding; better those who push forward, who employ their enterprise, who on the wings of their worth and valor seek to embrace luck, and to effectively gain her favor.
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 -
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 -
You can cultivate taste, as you can the intellect. Full understanding whets the appetite and desire, and, later, sharpens the enjoyment of possession.
Baltasar Gracian -
Two kinds of people are good at foreseeing danger: those who have learned at their own expense, and the clever people who learn a great deal at the expense of others.
Baltasar Gracian