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.
Baltasar Gracian

A beautiful woman should break her mirror early.
Baltasar Gracian

Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil.
Baltasar Gracian

Dreams will get you nowhere, a good kick in the pants will take you a long way.
Baltasar Gracian

Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment.
Baltasar Gracian

Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem. Most things are judged by their jackets.
Baltasar Gracian

A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity.
Baltasar Gracian

A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.
Baltasar Gracian

Know or listen to those who know.
Baltasar Gracian

Never have a companion that casts you in the shade.
Baltasar Gracian

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

Aspire rather to be a hero than merely appear one.
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.
Baltasar Gracian

Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.
Baltasar Gracian

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

Let him that hath no power of patience retire within himself, though even there he will have to put up with himself.
Baltasar Gracian

He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much, and God in everything.
Baltasar Gracian

It is good to vary in order that you may frustrate the curious, especially those who envy you.
Baltasar Gracian

It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards.
Baltasar Gracian

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

I strive to be brief, and I become obscure.
Baltasar Gracian

Never do anything when you are in a temper, for you will do everything wrong.
Baltasar Gracian

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.
Baltasar Gracian

Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.
Baltasar Gracian

Fortune pays you sometimes for the intensity of her favors by the shortness of their duration. She soon tires of carrying any one long on her shoulders.
Baltasar Gracian

He that communicates his secret to another makes himself that other's slave.
Baltasar Gracian

Biography
Nationality: Spanish
Type: Philosopher
Born: January 8, 1601
Died: December 6, 1658