"To oblige people often costs little and helps much."
Read quote
17 likes
Quote collection
Baltasar Gracian quotes (page 3 of 13)
258 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem. Most things are judged by their jackets."
Read quote
17 likes
"Friendship multiplies blessings and...soothes the soul."
Read quote
17 likes
"When a man's knowledge is deep, he speaks well of an enemy. Instead of seeking revenge, he extends unexpected generosity. He turns insult into humor, ... and astonishes his adversary who finds no reason not to trust him."
Read quote
16 likes
"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."
Read quote
16 likes
"Treat your enemies with courtesy, and you'll see how valuable it really is. It costs little but pays a nice dividend: those who honor are honored. Politeness and a sense of honor have this advantage: we bestow them on others without losing a thing."
Read quote
16 likes
"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."
Read quote
15 likes
"The path to greatness is along with others."
Read quote
15 likes
"Life is a warfare against the malice of others."
Read quote
15 likes
"Know how to use evasion. That is how smart people get out of difficulties."
Read quote
14 likes
"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."
Read quote
14 likes
"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."
Read quote
14 likes
"Know how to choose well. Most of life depends thereon. It needs good taste and correct judgment, for which neither intellect nor study suffices."
Read quote
14 likes
"Don't express your ideas too clearly. Most people think little of what they understand, and venerate what they do not."
Read quote
14 likes
"Every fool stands convinced; and everyone convinced is a fool. The faultier a person's judgement the firmer their convictions."
Read quote
14 likes
"Hurry is the weakness of fools."
Read quote
13 likes
"Know what is evil, no matter how worshipped it may be. Let the man of sense not mistake it, even when clothed in brocade, or at times crowned in gold, because it cannot thereby hide its hypocrisy, for slavery does not lose its infamy, however noble the master."
Read quote
13 likes
"He who puts off nothing till tomorrow has done a great deal."
Read quote
13 likes
"Know how to keep anticipation alive: always strive to feed it, by letting the much promise more, and the one achievement be the announcement only of a greater. Put not all your reserves into the first throw; the great trick is to dole out strength, and to dole out mind, in such a fashion as to bring forward increasingly the fulfillment of what was expected of you."
Read quote
13 likes
"Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose."
Read quote
12 likes