Baltasar Gracian

Friends are a second existence.
– Baltasar Gracian

A single lie destroys a whole reputation for integrity.
– Baltasar Gracian

Aspire rather to be a hero than merely appear one.
– Baltasar Gracian

A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.
– Baltasar Gracian

Always act as if others were watching.
– Baltasar Gracian

He who finds fortune on his side should go briskly ahead, for she is wont to favor the bold.
– Baltasar Gracian

Be content to act, and leave the talking to others.
– Baltasar Gracian

It is a great piece of skill to know how to guide your luck even while waiting for it.
– Baltasar Gracian

Don’t show off every day, or you’ll stop surprising people. There must always be some novelty
left over. The person who displays a little more of it each day keeps up expectations, and no
one ever discovers the limits of his talent.
– Baltasar Gracian

Never compete with someone who has nothing to lose.
– Baltasar Gracian

Knowledge without courage is sterile.
– Baltasar Gracian

Know how to ask. There is nothing more difficult for some people, nor for others, easier.
– Baltasar Gracian

Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.
– Baltasar Gracian

Never do anything when you are in a temper, for you will do everything wrong.
– Baltasar Gracian

Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone.
– Baltasar Gracian

What should move us to action is human dignity: The inalienable dignity of the oppressed, but
also the dignity of each of us. We lose dignity if we tolerate the intolerable.
– Baltasar Gracian

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

Hope is a great falsifier. Let good judgment keep her in check.
– Baltasar Gracian

True knowledge lies in knowing how to live.
– Baltasar Gracian

Always leave something to wish for; otherwise you will be miserable from your very happiness.
– Baltasar Gracian

Always have your mouth full of sugar to sweeten your words, so that even your ill-wishers
enjoy them.
– Baltasar Gracian

One must pass through the circumference of time before arriving at the center of
opportunity.
– Baltasar Gracian

Readiness is the mother of luck.
– Baltasar Gracian

It is a great deed to leave nothing for tomorrow.
– Baltasar Gracian

Work is the price which is paid for reputation.
– Baltasar Gracian

Avoid outshining the master. All superiority is odious, but the superiority of a subject over his
prince is not only stupid, it is fatal. This is a lesson that the stars in the sky teach us – they
may be related to the sun, and just as brilliant, but they never appear in her company.
– Baltasar Gracian

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.
– Baltasar Gracian

Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.
– Baltasar Gracian

Virtue alone is for real; all else is sham. Talent and greatness depend on virtue, not on fortune.
Only virtue is sufficient unto herself. She makes us love the living and remember the dead.
– Baltasar Gracian

Do not persist in folly. Some make it a duty of failure and having started down the wrong
road, think it is a badge of character to continue.
– Baltasar Gracian

He who laughs at everything is as big a fool as he who weeps at everything.
– Baltasar Gracian

Never share your secrets with those greater than you.
– Baltasar Gracian

It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards.
– Baltasar Gracian

Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than grave teaching.
– Baltasar Gracian

The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.
– Baltasar Gracian

Some marry the first information they receive, and turn what comes later into their
concubine. Since deceit is always first to arrive, there is no room left for truth.
– Baltasar Gracian

There is none who cannot teach somebody something, and there is none so excellent but he
is excelled.
– Baltasar Gracian

Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment.
– Baltasar Gracian

It is better to have too much courtesy than too little, provided you are not equally courteous
to all, for that would be injustice.
– Baltasar Gracian

A sage has one advantage: He is immortal. If this is not his century, many others will be.
– Baltasar Gracian

Words are feminine; deeds are masculine.
– Baltasar Gracian

A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one.
– Baltasar Gracian

Don’t take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent has taken the right
side.
– Baltasar Gracian

A man of honour should never forget what he is because he sees what others are.
– Baltasar Gracian

It is good to vary in order that you may frustrate the curious, especially those who envy you.
– Baltasar Gracian

One deceit needs many others, and so the whole house is built in the air and must soon come
to the ground.
– Baltasar Gracian

Good things, when short, are twice as good.
– Baltasar Gracian

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

Keep the extent of your abilities unknown.The wise man does not allow his knowledge and
abilities to be sounded to the bottom, if he desires to be honored at all.
– Baltasar Gracian

When desire dies, fear is born.
– Baltasar Gracian

A weak spirit does more harm than a weak body.
– Baltasar Gracian

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

A bad manner spoils everything, even reason and justice; a good one supplies everything,
gilds a “No,” sweetens truth, and adds a touch of beauty to old age itself.
– Baltasar Gracian

Do pleasant things yourself, unpleasant things through others.
– Baltasar Gracian

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

Hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one.
– Baltasar Gracian

A beautiful woman should break her mirror early.
– Baltasar Gracian

Be master over yourself before you would be master over others.
– Baltasar Gracian

He that communicates his secret to another makes himself that other’s slave.
– Baltasar Gracian

Know or listen to those who know.
– 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

Many have had their greatness made for them by their enemies.
– Baltasar Gracian

Keep the extent of your abilities unknown. The wise man does not allow his knowledge and
abilities to be sounded to the bottom, if he desires to be honored by all. He allows you to
know them but not to comprehend them. No one must know the extent of his abilities, lest he
be disappointed. No one ever has an opportunity of fathoming him entirely. For guesses and
doubts about the extent of his talents arouse more veneration than accurate knowledge of
them, be they ever so great.
– Baltasar Gracian

Respect yourself if you would have others respect you.
– Baltasar Gracian

Knowledge and courage take turns at greatness.
– Baltasar Gracian

Let him that hath no power of patience retire within himself, though even there he will have
to put up with himself.
– Baltasar Gracian

Fortunate people often have very favorable beginnings and very tragic endings. What matters
isn’t being applauded when you arrive, for that is common, but being missed when you leave.
– Baltasar Gracian

Luck can be assisted. It is not all chance with the wise.
– Baltasar Gracian

Do not show your wounded finger, for everything will knock up against it.
– Baltasar Gracian

Nature scarcely ever gives us the very best; for that we must have recourse to art.
– Baltasar Gracian

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

One should cultivate good habits of memory, for it is capable of making existence a paradise
or an inferno.
– Baltasar Gracian

One half the world laughs at the other, and fools are they all!
– Baltasar Gracian

Even knowledge has to be in the fashion, and where it is not, it is wise to affect ignorance.
– Baltasar Gracian

Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy; in the one
case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed.
– Baltasar Gracian

One who was adored by all in prosperity is abhorred by all in adversity.
– 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

Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil.
– Baltasar Gracian

Self-knowledge is the beginning of self-improvement.
– Baltasar Gracian

Never lose your self-respect, nor be too familiar with yourself when you are alone. Let your
integrity itself be your own standard of rectitude, and be more indebted to the severity of
your own judgement of yourself than to all external precepts. Desist from unseemly conduct,
rather out of respect for your own virtue than for the strictures of external authority. Come
to hold yourself in awe, and you will have no need of Seneca’s imaginary tutor.
– Baltasar Gracian