Baltasar Gracian Quotes

The pillow is a silent Sibyl, and it is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards.

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

Take advantage of your novelty. You will be esteemed as long as you are new. Novelty pleases everyone because of its variety. Our taste feels refreshed. A brand-new mediocrity is more highly regarded than an extremely talented person to whom we have grown accustomed. When eminences mingle with us they age more quickly. And remember […]

Be diligent and intelligent. Diligence is quick to carry out what intelligence has has lingered over. Fools are fond of hurry: they take no heed of obstacles and act incautiously. The wise usually fail through hesitation. Fools stop at nothing, the wise at everything. Sometimes things are judged correctly but go wrong out of inefficiency […]

A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity.

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

Everything foreign is respected, partly because it comes from afar, partly because it is ready made and perfect.

Don’t express your ideas too clearly. Most people think little of what they understand, and venerate what they do not.

Use human means as if there were no divine ones, and divine means as if there were no human ones.

Always deal with people of principle. Favor them and win their favor. Their very rectitude ensures they will treat you well even when they oppose you, for they act like who they are, and it is better to fight with good-minded people than to conquer the bad. There is no way to get along with […]