Baltasar Gracián

Maxims
1 . Everything is at its peak of perfection.
2 . Character and intellect.
3 . Keep matters for a time in suspense.
4 . Knowledge and courage.
5 . Make people depend on you.
6 . A person at his peak.
7 . Avoid outshining your superiors.
8 . Be without passions.
9 . Avoid the faults of your nation.
10 . Fortune and Fame.
11 . Cultivate relationships with those who can teach you.
12 . Nature and art, material and workmanship.
13 . Act sometimes on second thoughts, sometimes on first impulse.
14 . The thing itself and the way it is done.
15 . Keep auxiliary wits around you.
16 . Knowledge and good intentions.
17 . Vary your mode of action.
18 . Application and ability.
19 . Arouse no exaggerated expectations when you start something.
20 . A man of the times.
21 . The art of being lucky.
22 . Knowledge has a purpose.
23 . Be free of imperfections.
24 . Keep you imagination under control.
25 . Know how to take a hint.
26 . Find out each person's thumbscrew.
27 . Prize intensity more than extent.
28 . Be common in nothing.
29 . Be a person of integrity.
30 . Have nothing to do with disreputable occupations.
31 . Select the lucky and avoid the unlucky.
32 . Have a reputation for being gracious.
33 . Know how to withdraw.
34 . Know your strongest quality.
35 . Think things over, especially those that are important.
36 . Before acting or refraining weigh your luck.
37 . Keep a store of sarcasms and know how to use them.
38 . Leave your luck while still winning.
39 . Recognize when things are ripe, and know how to enjoy them.
40 . Gain people's goodwill.
41 . Never exaggerate.
42 . Natural leadership.
43 . Think with the few and speak with the many.
44 . Sympathy with great minds.
45 . Use, but do not abuse, cunning.
46 . Master your antipathies.
47 . Avoid incurring obligations.
48 . So much depends on being a person of depth.
49 . Be a person of observation and judgement.
50 . Never lose your self-respect.
51 . Know how to choose well.
52 . Never be upset.
53 . Be diligent and intelligent.
54 . Know how to show your strength.
55 . Know how to wait.
56 . Have presence of mind.
57 . Be slow and sure.
58 . Adapt yourself to those around you.
59 . Finish off well.
60 . Have sound judgement.
61 . Excel in what is excellent.
62 . Use good instruments.
63 . To be the first of the kind is excellent.
64 . Avoid worry.
65 . Cultivate taste.
66 . See to it that things end well.
67 . Choose an occupation that wins distinction.
68 . It is better to help with intelligence than with memory.
69 . Do not give way to every common impulse.
70 . Know how to say "no".
71 . Do not vacillate.
72 . Be resolute.
73 . Know how to use evasion.
74 . Do not be unapproachable.
75 . Chose a heroic ideal.
76 . Do not always be joking.
77 . Be all things to all people.
78 . The art of undertaking things.
79 . A jovial disposition.
80 . Take care when you get information.
81 . Renew your brilliance.
82 . Drain nothing to the dregs, neither good nor bad.
83 . Allow yourself some forgivable sin.
84 . Make use of your enemies.
85 . Do not be a wild card, a jack-of-all-trades.
86 . Prevent scandal.
87 . Culture and elegance.
88 . Let your behavior be fine and noble.
89 . Know yourself.
90 . The secret of long life.
91 . Never set to work at anything if you have any doubts about its prudence.
92 . Transcendent wisdom.
93 . Versatility.
94 . Keep the extent of your abilities unknown.
95 . Keep expectation alive.
96 . The highest discretion.
97 . Obtain and preserve a reputation.
98 . Write your intentions in cypher.
99 . Reality and appearance.
100 . Be a person without illusions, one who is wise and righteous, a philosophical courtier.101 . One half of the world laughs at the other, and fools are they all.
102 . Be able to stomach big slices of luck.
103 . Let each keep up his dignity.
104 . Get to know what is needed in different occupations.
105 . Do not be a bore.
106 . Do not parade your position.
107 . Show no self-satisfaction.
108 . The shortest path to greatness is along with others.
109 . Do not be censorious.
110 . Do not wait till you are a setting sun.
111 . Have friends.
112 . Gain goodwill.
113 . In times of prosperity prepare for adversity.
114 . Never compete.
115 . Get used to the failings of those around you.
116 . Only act with honorable people.
117 . Never talk about yourself.
118 . Acquire the reputation for courtesy.
119 . Avoid becoming disliked.
120 . Live practically.
121 . Do not make much ado about nothing.
122 . Distinction in speech and action.
123 . Avoid affectation.
124 . Make yourself sought after.
125 . Do not be a blacklister of other people's faults.
126 . Folly consists not in committing folly, but in not hiding it when committed..
127 . Grace in everything.
128 . High -mindedness.
129 . Never complain.
130 . Do and be seen doing.
131 . Nobility of feeling.
132 . Revise your judgements.
133 . Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone.
134 . Double your resources.
135 . Do not nourish the spirit of contradiction.
136 . Post yourself in the center of things.
137 . The sage should be self-sufficient.
138 . The art of letting things alone.
139 . Recognize unlucky days.
140 . Find the good in a thing at once.
141 . Do not listen to yourself.
142 . Never from obstinacy take the wrong side because your opponent has anticipated you by taking
the right one.
143 . Never become paradoxical in order to avoid being trite.
144 . Begin with another's to end with your own.
145 . Do not show your wounded finger, for everything will knock up against it.
146 . Look into the interior of things.
147 . Do not be inaccessible.
148 . Have the art of conversation.
149 . Know how to put off ills on others.
150 . Know how to get your price for things.
151 . Think beforehand.
152 . Never have a companion who outshines you.
153 . Beware of entering where there is a great gap to be filled.
154 . Do not believe, or like, lightly.
155 . The art of mastering your passions.
156 . Select your friends.
157 . Do not make mistakes about character.
158 . Make use of your friends.
159 . Put up with fools.
160 . Be careful in speaking.
161 . Know your pet faults.
162 . How to triumph over your rivals and detractors.
163 . Never - out of sympathy with the unfortunate - involve yourself in their fate.
164 . Throw straws in the air to test the wind.
165 . Wage war honorably.
166 . Distinguish people of words from people of deeds.
167 . Know how to rely on yourself.
168 . Do not indulge in the eccentricities of folly.
169 . Be more careful not to miss once than to hit a hundred times.
170 . In all things keep something in reserve.
171 . Do not waste influence.
172 . Never contend with someone who has nothing to lose.
173 . Do not be made of glass in your relations with others, still less in friendship.
174 . Do not live in a hurry.
175 . A solid person.
176 . Have knowledge, or know those who do.
177 . Avoid being to familiar with others.
178 . Trust your heart.
179 . Reticence is the seal of capacity.
180 . Never guide the enemy to what he has to do.
181 . The truth, but not the whole truth.
182 . A grain of boldness in everything.
183 . Do not hold your views to firmly.
184 . Do not stand on ceremony.
185 . Never stake your credit on a single cast of the dice.
186 . Recognize faults, however highly placed.
187 . Do pleasant things yourself, unpleasant things through others.
188 . Be the bearer of praise.
189 . Utilize another's wants.
190 . Find consolation in all things.
191 . Do not take payment in politeness.
192 . A peaceful life is a long life.
193 . Watch out for people who begin with another's concerns to end with their own.
194 . Have reasonable views of yourself and of your affairs.
195 . Know how to appreciate.
196 . Know your ruling star.
197 . Do not carry fools on your back.
198 . Know how to transplant yourself.
199 . Find your proper place by merit, not by presumption.
200 . Leave something to wish for.
201 . They are all fools who seem so, as well as half the rest.
202 . Words and deeds make the perfect person.
203 . Know the great people of your age.
204 . Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult and difficult as if they were easy.
205 . Know how to play the card of contempt.
206 . Know that there are vulgar people everywhere.
207 . Be moderate.
208 . Do not die of the fools' disease.
209 . Keep yourself free from common follies.
210 . Know how to play the card of truth.
211 . In heaven all is bliss.
212 . Keep to yourself the final touches of your art.
213 . Know how to contradict.
214 . Do not turn one blunder into two.
215 . Watch out for those who act on second thoughts.
216 . Be expressive.
217 . Neither love nor hate forever.
218 . Never act from obstinacy but from knowledge.
219 . Do not pass for a hypocrite.
220 . If you cannot clothe yourself in lion-skin use foxpelt.
221 . Do not seize occasions to embarrass yourself or others.
222 . Reserve is proof of prudence.
223 . Do not be eccentric, neither from affectation nor carelessness.
224 . Never take things against the grain, no matter how they come.
225 . Know your chief fault.
226 . Take care to be obliging.
227 . Do not be the slave of first impressions.
228 . Do not be a scandalmonger.
229 . Plan out your life wisely.
230 . Open your eyes early.
231 . Never let things be seen half finished.
232 . Have a touch of business sense.
233 . Do not let the morsels you offer be distasteful.
234 . Never trust your honor to another, unless you have his in pledge.
235 . Know how to ask.
236 . Make an obligation beforehand of what would have to be a reward afterward.
237 . Never share the secrets of your superiors.
238 . Know what is lacking in yourself.
239 . Do not be overly critical.
240 . Make use of folly.
241 . Put up with mockery but do not practice it yourself.
242 . Push advantages.
243 . Do not be too much of a dove.
244 . Create a feeling of obligation.
245 . Have original and out-of-the-way views.
246 . Never offer satisfaction unless it is demanded.
247 . Know a little more, live a little less.
248 . Do not go with the latest speaker.
249 . Never begin life with what should end it.
250 . When to turn conversation around.
251 . Use human means as if there were no divine ones, and divine means as if there were no human
ones.
252 . Neither belong entirely to yourself nor entirely to others.
253 . Do not explain too much.
254 . Never despise an evil, however small.
255 . Do good a little at a time, but often.
256 . Go prepared.
257 . Never let matters come to a braking point.
258 . Find someone to share your troubles with.
259 . Anticipate injuries and turn them into favors.
260 . We belong to no one and no one to us, entirely.
261 . Do not follow up a folly.
262 . Be able to forget.
263 . Many things of taste one should not possess oneself.
264 . Have no careless days.
265 . Set difficult tasks for those under you.
266 . Do not become bad from sheer goodness.
267 . Silken words, sugared manners.
268 . The wise do at once what the fool does later.
269 . Make use of the novelty of your position.
270 . Do not condemn alone that which pleases all.
271 . In every occupation, if you know little stick to the safe path.
272 . Sell things with a tariff of courtesy.
273 . Comprehend the disposition of the people you deal with.
274 . Be attractive.
275 . Join in the game as far as decency permits.
276 . Know how to renew your character both with nature and with art.
277 . Display yourself.
278 . Avoid notoriety in all things.
279 . Do not respond to those who contradict you.
280 . Be trustworthy.
281 . Find favor with people of good sense.
282 . Make use of absence to make yourself more esteemed or valued.
283 . Have the gift of discovery.
284 . Do not be burdensome.
285 . Never die of another's bad luck.
286 . Do not become responsible for all or for everyone.
287 . Never act out of passion.
288 . Live for the moment.
289 . Nothing depreciates a person more than to show he is just like anyone else.
290 . It is a piece of good fortune to combine people's love and respect.
291 . Know how to test people.
292 . Let your personal qualities surpass the requirements of your office.
293 . Maturity.
294 . Be moderate in your views.
295 . Do not affect what you have not effected.
296 . Noble qualities.
297 . Always act as if others were watching.
298 . Three things go to a prodigy.
299 . Leave of hungry.
300 . In one word, be a saint.

Albrecht Dürer	Amelot de la Houssaie	Horacy
Juan Rufo	La rochefoucauld	ŁUKASZ GÓRNICKI
Machiavelli	Madame de Sablé	Seneka
Tacyt	Tintoretto	Tycjan

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