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
conversation folly ifs
If to talk to oneself when alone is folly, it must be doubly unwise to listen to oneself in the presence of others.
doors stupidity fool
Fools rush in through the door; for folly is always bold.
favors being-a-woman young
When you find Fortune favorable, stride boldly forward, for she favors the bold, and being a woman, the young.
birthday justice age
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.
long favors pay
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.
thinking ideas people
Don't express your ideas too clearly. Most people think little of what they understand, and venerate what they do not.
lying exaggeration-is branches
Exaggeration is a branch of lying.
inspirational motivational art
The great art of giving consists in this the gift should cost very little and yet be greatly coveted, so that it may be the more highly appreciated.
men barbarians culture
Man is born a barbarian, and only raises himself above the beast by culture.
memories paradise habit
One should cultivate good habits of memory, for it is capable of making existence a Paradise or an Inferno.
favors sides should
He who finds Fortune on his side should go briskly ahead, for she is wont to favor the bold.
wise learning thinking
Many would be wise if they did not think themselves wise.
work ease
To be at ease is better than to be at business.
work skills kind
It is a novel kind of supremacy, the best that life can offer, to have as servants by skill those who by nature are our masters.