Baltasar Gracian Quotes - Page 4

Hurry is the weakness of fools.

Beauty and folly are generally companions.

Exaggeration is a branch of lying.

Do pleasant things yourself, but unpleasant things through others.

Mediocrity obtains more with application than superiority without it.

It is profound philosophy to sound the depths of feeling and distinguish traits of character. Men must be studied as deeply as books.

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 judgment of yourself than to all external percepts. Desist from unseemly conduct, rather out of respect for your own virtue than for the strictures of external authority.

Friends provoked become the bitterest of enemies.

Never have a companion that casts you in the shade.

Knowledge and courage take turns at greatness.

Hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one.

An ounce of prudence is worth a pound of cleverness.

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the other one.

Let the first impulse pass, wait for the second.

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.

Know how to choose well. Most of life depends thereon. It needs good taste and correct judgment, for which neither intellect nor study suffices.

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.

None is so perfect that he does not need at times the advice of others.

The greatest wisdom often consist in ignorance.

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.

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

It is impossible to live without brains, either one's own or borrowed.

To oblige people often costs little and helps much.

Do not show your wounded finger for everything will knock up against it.

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