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
reality expectations people
Honorable beginnings should serve to awaken curiosity, not to heighten people's expectations. We are much better off when reality surpasses our expectations, and something turns out better than we thought it would.
skeletons keys leaving
No one demands more caution than a spy, and when someone has the skeleton key to minds, counter him by leaving the key of caution inside, on the other side of the keyhole.
philosophy mistake book
Do not make Mistakes about Character. That is the worst and yet easiest error. Better be cheated in the price than in the quality of goods. In dealing with men, more than with other things, it is necessary to look within. To know men is different from knowing things. It is profound philosophy to sound the depths of feeling and distinguish traits of character. Men must be studied as deeply as books.
integrity self judgment
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.
friendship real-friends advice
Never have a companion that casts you in the shade.
winning shining advice
Display startling novelty-rise afresh like the sun every day. Change too the scene on which you shine, so that you rloss may be felt in the old scenes of your triumph, while the novelty of your powers wins applause in the new.
wisdom war anger
Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.
wise luck chance
Luck can be assisted. It is not all chance with the wise.
fashion independent vote
You should aim to be independent of any one vote, of any one fashion, of any one century.
human-nature multitudes
What the multitude says, is so, or soon will be so.
imitation equal predecessors
To equal a predecessor, one must have twice they worth.
littles mystery veneration
Mix a little mystery with everything, for mystery arouses veneration.
ambition way pushing
The true way is the middle one, halfway between deserving a place and pushing oneself into it.
ends should
Oh life, you should never had begun, but since you did, you should never end