Famous Quotes

Quotes by Baltasar Gracian

• 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.
• Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than grave teaching.
• Always leave something to wish for otherwise you will be miserable from your very happiness.
• Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone.
• Dreams will get you nowhere, a good kick in the pants will take you a long way.
• Even knowledge has to be in the fashion, and where it is not, it is wise to affect ignorance.
• Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil.
• He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much, and God in everything.
• He that communicates his secret to another makes himself that other's slave.
• Hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one.
• Hope is a great falsifier. Let good judgment keep her in check.
• Know or listen to those who know.
• Let him that hath no power of patience retire within himself, though even there he will have to put up with himself.
• Nature scarcely ever gives us the very best for that we must have recourse to art.
• Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.
• Never do anything when you are in a temper, for you will do everything wrong.
• Never have a companion that casts you in the shade.
• Quit while you're ahead. All the best gamblers do.
• Respect yourself if you would have others respect you.
• The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.
• The things we remember best are those better forgotten.
• The wise does at once what the fool does at last.
• To be at ease is better than to be at business. Nothing really belongs to us but time, which even he has who has nothing else.
• 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.
• True knowledge lies in knowing how to live.
• When desire dies, fear is born.
• Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.
• Work is the price which is paid for reputation.