Baltasar Gracian Quotes

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

- 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

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

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

- Baltasar Gracian

Hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one.

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- Baltasar Gracian

At twenty a man is a peacock, at thirty a lion, at forty a camel, at fifty a serpent, at sixty a dog, at seventy an ape, at eighty a nothing at all.

- Baltasar Gracian

A beautiful woman should break her mirror early.

- 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

Fortune pays you sometimes for the intensity of her favors by the shortness of their duration. She soon tires of carrying any one long on her shoulders.

- Baltasar Gracian

Evil report carries further than any applause.

- Baltasar Gracian

Have friends. 'Tis a second existence.

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- Baltasar Gracian

Let the first impulse pass, wait for the second.

- 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

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

- Baltasar Gracian

Little said is soon amended. There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one.

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- Baltasar Gracian

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 good fortune; to keep him is a blessing.

- Baltasar Gracian

Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil.

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- Baltasar Gracian

Never have a companion that casts you in the shade.

- Baltasar Gracian

Those who insist on the dignity of their office show they have not deserved it.

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- 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 take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent has taken the right side.

- Baltasar Gracian

To oblige persons often costs little and helps much.

- Baltasar Gracian

When desire dies, fear is born.

- 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

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

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- Baltasar Gracian

Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- 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

Many have had their greatness made for them by their enemies.

- Baltasar Gracian

True knowledge lies in knowing how to live.

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- Baltasar Gracian

Work is the price which is paid for reputation.

- Baltasar Gracian

A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity.

- Baltasar Gracian

The things we remember best are those better forgotten.

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- Baltasar Gracian

Begin with another's to end with your own.

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- Baltasar Gracian

I strive to be brief, and I become obscure.

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- Baltasar Gracian

He that communicates his secret to another makes himself that other's slave.

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- Baltasar Gracian

The wise does at once what the fool does at last.

- Baltasar Gracian

To equal a predecessor, one must have twice they worth.

- Baltasar Gracian

Know or listen to those who know.

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- Baltasar Gracian

Be content to act, and leave the talking to others.

- Baltasar Gracian

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

- Baltasar Gracian

Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone.

- Baltasar Gracian

Respect yourself if you would have others respect you.

- Baltasar Gracian

To be at ease is better than to be at business. Nothing really belongs to us but time, which even he has who has nothing else.

- Baltasar Gracian

Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.

- Baltasar Gracian

There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one.

- Baltasar Gracian