Quotes from Baltasar Gracian

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.

True knowledge lies in knowing how to live.

Knowledge without courage is sterile.

It is therefore an excellent device to acquire knowledge from everybody.

There is none who cannot teach somebody something, and there is none so excellent but he is excelled.

Life is a warfare against the malice of others.

Know how to choose well. Most of life depends thereon. It needs good taste and correct judgment, for which neither intellect nor study suffices.

There is no wilderness like a life without friends; friendship multiplies blessings and minimizes misfortunes; it is a unique remedy against adversity, and it soothes the soul.

We often have to put up with most from those on whom we most depend.

Put a grain of boldness into everything you do.

Tis by no means the least of life's rules: To let things alone.

It is impossible to live without brains, either one's own or borrowed.

It is better to have too much courtesy than too little, provided you are not equally courteous to all, for that would be injustice.

The things we remember best are those better forgotten.

Never have a companion that casts you in the shade.

The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.

Success rarely brings satisfaction.

Make your friends your teachers and mingle the pleasures of conversation with the advantages of instruction.

There is no wilderness like a life without friends.

Oh life, you should never had begun, but since you did, you should never end

Nature scarcely ever gives us the very best; for that we must have recourse to art.

The wise does at once what the fool does at last.

Even knowledge has to be in the fashion, and where it is not, it is wise to affect ignorance.

One must pass through the circumference of time before arriving at the center of opportunity.