Baltasar Gracian
The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.Collection: Jealousy
He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much, and God in everything.Collection: God
Dreams will get you nowhere, a good kick in the pants will take you a long way.Collection: Dreams
True knowledge lies in knowing how to live.Collection: Knowledge
Know or listen to those who know.Collection: Motivational
Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.Collection: Courage
When desire dies, fear is born.Collection: Fear
Even knowledge has to be in the fashion, and where it is not, it is wise to affect ignorance.Collection: Knowledge
Let him that hath no power of patience retire within himself, though even there he will have to put up with himself.Collection: Patience
The wise does at once what the fool does at last.Collection: Motivational
Respect yourself if you would have others respect you.Collection: Respect
Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone.Collection: Wisdom
Never do anything when you are in a temper, for you will do everything wrong.Collection: Anger
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.Collection: Friendship
Quit while you're ahead. All the best gamblers do.Collection: Best
Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil.Collection: Friendship
Never have a companion that casts you in the shade.Collection: Friendship
Hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one.Collection: Hope
Always leave something to wish for; otherwise you will be miserable from your very happiness.Collection: Happiness
Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.Collection: Anger
Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than grave teaching.Collection: Teacher
He that communicates his secret to another makes himself that other's slave.Collection: Communication
Work is the price which is paid for reputation.
Evil report carries further than any applause.
Hope is a great falsifier. Let good judgment keep her in check.
A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.
A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity.
A beautiful woman should break her mirror early.
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.
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.
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.
Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment.
We often have to put up with most from those on whom we most depend.
Don't take the wrong side of an argument just because your opponent has taken the right side.
Be content to act, and leave the talking to others.
It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards.
He that has satisfied his thirst turns his back on the well.
There is none who cannot teach somebody something, and there is none so excellent but he is excelled.
Little said is soon amended. There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one.
Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.
Aspire rather to be a hero than merely appear one.
It is a great piece of skill to know how to guide your luck even while waiting for it.
The things we remember best are those better forgotten.
One must pass through the circumference of time before arriving at the center of opportunity.
Let the first impulse pass, wait for the second.
Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem. Most things are judged by their jackets.
A man of honour should never forget what he is because he sees what others are.
Many have had their greatness made for them by their enemies.
Have friends. 'Tis a second existence.
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.