Baltasar Gracián Quotes

There are rules to luck, not everything is chance for the wise; luck can be helped by skill.

Life is a warfare against the malice of others.

Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.

Dreams will get you nowhere, a good kick in the pants will take you a long way.

Never exaggerate. It is a matter of great importance to forego superlatives, in part to avoid offending the truth, and in part to avoid cheapening your judgment. Exaggeration wastes distinction and testifies to the paucity of your understanding and taste. Praise excites anticipation and stimulates desire. Afterwards when value does not measure up to price, disappointment turns against the fraud and takes revenge by cheapening both the appraised and the appraise. For this reason let the prudent go slowly, and err in understatement rather than overstatement. The extraordinary of every kind is always rare, wherefore temper your estimate.

Oh life, you should never had begun, but since you did, you should never end

True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils. Strive to have friends, for life without friends is like life on a desert island... To find one real friend in a lifetime is a good fortune; to keep him is a blessing.

He that has satisfied his thirst turns his back on the well.

The great art of giving consists in this the gift should cost very little and yet be greatly coveted, so that it may be the more highly appreciated.

Do not enter where too much is anticipated. It is the misfortune of the over-celebrated that they cannot measure up to excessive expectations. The actual can never attain the imagined: for to think perfection is easy, but to embody it is most difficult. The imagination weds the wish, and together they always conjure up more than reality can furnish. For however great may be a person's virtues, the will never measure up to what was imagined. When people see themselves cheated in their extravagant anticipations, they turn more quickly to disparagement than to praise. Hope is a great falsifier of the truth; the the intelligence put her right by seeing to it that the fruit is superior to its appetite. You will make a better exit when the actual transcends the imagined, and is more than was expected.

There's no greater absurdity than taking everything seriously.

Knowledge without courage is sterile.

Folly consists not in committing Folly, but in being incapable of concealing it. All men make mistakes, but the wise conceal the blunders they have made, while fools make them public. Reputation depends more on what is hidden than on what is seen. If you can’t be good, be careful.

Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem. Most things are judged by their jackets.

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.