Baltasar Gracián Quotes

Have Friends. ’Tis a second existence.

Do not be held a cheat, even though it is impossible to live today without being one. Let your greatest cunning lie in covering up what looks like cunning.

Life doesn’t depend on any one opinion, any one custom, or any one century.

We often have to put up with most from those on whom we most depend.

He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much and God in everything. cxxxviii

Nature and art: The material and the workmanship. There is no beauty unaided, no excellence that does not sink to the barbarous, unless saved by art: It redeems the bad and perfects the good. Because nature commonly forsakes us at her best, take refuge in art. The best in nature is raw without art, and the excellent is lacking if it lacks culture. Without cultivation everyone is a clown and needs polish, fine attributes notwithstanding.

Quit while you’re ahead.
All the best gamblers do.

Work is the price which is paid for reputation.

Audacious persons hope to make themselves eternally famous by setting fire to one of the wonders of the world and of the ages. The art of reproving scandal is to take no notice of it, to combat it damages our own case; even if credited it causes discredit, and is a source of satisfaction to our opponent, for this shadow of a stain dulls the lustre of our fame even if it cannot altogether deaden it.

Man's life is militia against man's malice.

When your opponent sees into your reasoning like a lynx, conceal your thoughts like an inky squid.

Be slow in enjoyment, quick at work, for men see work ended with pleasure, pleasure ended with regret. clxxv

tis better to have a dispute with honourable people than to have a victory over dishonourable ones. You cannot treat with the ruined, for they have no hostages for rectitude. With them there is no true friendship, and their agreements are not binding, however stringent they may appear, because they have no feeling of honour. Never have to do with such men, for if honour does not restrain a man, virtue will not, since honour is the throne of rectitude. cxvii

Señal de tener gastada la fama propia es cuidar de la infamia ajena.

Everything has its time; even what's outstanding is subject to changing taste.