Baltasar Gracian
Philosopher
1601-01-08
Quotes by Baltasar Gracian
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Never do anything when you are in a temper, for you will do everything wrong.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than grave teaching.
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Have friends. 'Tis a second existence.
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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.
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True knowledge lies in knowing how to live.
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At twenty a man is a peacock, at thirty a lion, at forty a camel, at fifty a serpent, at sixty a dog, at seventy an ape, at eighty a nothing at all.
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To equal a predecessor, one must have twice they worth.
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It is good to vary in order that you may frustrate the curious, especially those who envy you.
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Little said is soon amended. There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one.
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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.
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Don't take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent has taken the right side.
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Most do violence to their natural aptitude, and thus attain superiority in nothing.
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What is not seen is as if it was not. Even the Right does not receive proper consideration if it does not seem right.
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Nature scarcely ever gives us the very best; for that we must have recourse to art.
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Be content to act, and leave the talking to others.
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Keep to yourself the final touches of your art.
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Nothing arouses ambition so much in the heart as the trumpet-clang of another's fame.
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