Baltasar Gracian
Baltasar Gracian
Baltasar Gracián y Morales, SJ, formerly Anglicized as Baltazar Gracian, was a Spanish Jesuit and baroque prose writer and philosopher. He was born in Belmonte, near Calatayud. His writings were lauded by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche...
NationalitySpanish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth8 January 1601
CountrySpain
helping-others perspective matter
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.
keys fire may
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.
risk novelty losing
Many pleasant things are better when they belong to someone else. ... When things belong to others, we enjoy them twice as much, without the risk of losing them, and with the pleasure of novelty.
funny wise wisdom
Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone.
friends self ideas
There are friendships merely for pleasure, some for the exchange of ideas. Rarest are those friends of one's inmost self.
wisdom courage fruit
Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.
inspirational wise knowledge
A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.
what-matters people common
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.
lying sleep awake-at-night
It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards.
business good-luck skills
It is a great piece of skill to know how to guide your luck even while waiting for it.
wise opportunity men
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. 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.
warfare life-is malice
Life is a warfare against the malice of others.
revenge taken dust
Know how to play the card of contempt. It is the most politic kind of revenge. For there are many of whom we should have known nothing if their distinguished opponents had taken no notice of them. There is no revenge like oblivion, for it is the entombment of the unworthy in the dust of their own nothingness.
fool weakness action
Hurry is the weakness of fools.