Baltasar Gracián

Their intrinsic worth is not enough, for not all turn the goods over and look deep. Most run where the crowd is because the others run.

It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterward

Twice the wit is needed to deal with someone with none.

Our life is arranged like a play, everything will be sorted out in the end. Take care, then, to end it well.

Many people spend time studying the properties of animals or herbs; how much more important to study those people, with whom we live or die!

Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose

A beautiful woman should break her mirror early

Respect yourself if you would have others respect you.

He who has slaked his thirst, immediately turns his back on the well, no longer needing it. When dependence disappears, so does civility and decency, and then respect.

Aspire to be a hero than merely appear one.

There are many roads to singularity, not all of them well traveled. The newest ones can be arduous, but they are often shortcuts to greatness.

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 precepts. Desist from unseemly conduct, rather out of respect for your own virtue than for the strictures of external authority.

A good word concerning one who speaks evil of you cannot be praised too highly...

Every fool is utterly convinced, and everyone utterly convinced is a fool.

The envious man dies not only once but as many times as the person he envies lives to hear the voice of praise ...

Knowledge and courage contribute in turn to greatness. Since they are immortal, they immortalize. You are as much as you know, and a wise person can do anything. A person without knowledge is a world of darkness. Judgement and strength, eyes and hands; without courage, wisdom is sterile.

Their intrinsic worth is not enough, for not all turn the goods over and look deep. Most run where the crowd is--because the others run.

Many owe their greatness to their enemies. Flattery is fiercer than hatred, for hatred corrects the faults flattery had disguised.

If you cannot make knowledge your servant, make it your friend.

There is no better remedy for disorder than to let it runs its course; it will then disappear on its own.

Let the first impulse pass. Wait for the second.

Quit while you’re ahead. All the best gamblers do.

Though such authority and respect shouldn't be handed to all and sundry, have in caution's innermost room a confidant, a faithful mirror, whose correction you value when disillusionment is necessary.

Respect yourself is you would have others respect you.

Many people spend time studying the properties of animals or herbs; how much more important it would be to study those of people, with whom we must live or die!

Do not be held a cheat, even though it is impossible to live today without being one. Let your greatest cunning lie in covering up what looks like cunning.

Man's life is militia against man's malice.

When your opponent sees into your reasoning like a lynx, conceal your thoughts like an inky squid.

There is no better remedy for disorder than to let it run its course; it will then disappear on its own.

Be a combination of a dove and the serpent; not a monster, but a prodigy.