Quotes By Baltasar Gracian

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

A beautiful woman should break her mirror early.

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.

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

Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.

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

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

The things we remember best are those better forgotten.

Don't take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent has taken the right side.

A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity.

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

Begin with another's to end with your own.

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.

I strive to be brief, and I become obscure.

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.

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

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

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

Hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one.

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

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

True knowledge lies in knowing how to live.

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

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

Never have a companion that casts you in the shade.

Evil report carries further than any applause.

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.

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

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.

When desire dies, fear is born.