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How to Use Your Enemies QUOTES

How to Use Your Enemies QUOTES

1 " Deal with people from whom you can learn "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

2 " Cautious silence is the refuge of good sense "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

3 " What passion rushes to flatter, time is slow to disillusion us about. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

4 " In heaven, everything is good; in hell, everything bad. In the world, since it lies between the two, you find both. We are placed between two extremes, and so participate in both. Good and bad luck alternate; not all is happy, nor all hostile. This world is a zero: on its own, it's worth nothing; joined to heaven, a great deal. Indifference to its variety constitutes good sense - the wise are never surprised. Our life is arranged like a play, everything will be sorted out in the end. Take care, then, to end it well. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

5 " There's no greater absurdity than taking everything seriously. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

6 " You should therefore never reveal what causes you pain or pleasure, so that the former may quickly end and the latter long continue. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

7 " Nor should we lose heart if something doesn’t please someone, for there’ll always be someone else it does. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

8 " Everyone could have been pre-eminent at something, if they had been aware of their best quality. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

9 " Some friendships are like a marriage, others like an affair; the latter are for pleasure, the former for the abundant success they engender. Few are friends because of you yourself, many of because of your good fortune. A friend's true understanding is worth more than the many good wishes of others. Make friends by choice, then, not by chance. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

10 " Life is arduous without any breaks, like a long journey without any inns. Learned variety makes it pleasant. Spend the first part of a fine life in communication with the dead. We are born to know and to know ourselves, and books reliably turn us into people. Spend the second part with the living: see and examine all that's good in the world. Not everything can be found in one country; the universal Father has shared out his gifts and sometimes endows the ugliest with the most. Let the third stage be spent entirely with yourself: the ultimate happiness, to philosophize. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

11 " Diligence removes impossibilities. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

12 " The whole of life should be a process of deliberation to choose the right course. Reflection and foresight provide the means of living in anticipation. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

13 " Know your unlucky days, for the exist. Nothing will work out right and, even though you change your game, your bad luck will remain. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

14 " Everything has its time; even what's outstanding is subject to changing taste. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

15 " Moderation is necessary even in our desire for knowledge so as not to know things badly. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

16 " Life doesn’t depend on any one opinion, any one custom, or any one century. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

17 " A person has everything who cares nothing about what matters little. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

18 " No one is born complete; perfect yourself and your activities day by day until you become a truly consummate being, your talents and your qualities all perfected. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

19 " A feigned doubt is curiosity's subtlest picklock, enabling it to learn whatever it wants. Even where learning is concerned, contradiction is the pupil's strategy to make the teacher put all their effort into explaining and justifying the truth: a mild challenge leads to consummate instruction. "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies

20 " Don't be brittle as glass in dealing with people. And especially with friends. Some people crack easily, revealing their fragility. They fill up with offence and fill others with annoyance. They reveal a nature so petty and sensitive that it tolerates nothing, in jest or in earnest. The slightest thing offends them, so insults are never necessary. Those who have dealings with them have to tread carefully, always attending to their sensibilities and adjusting to their temperaments, since the slightest snub annoys them. They are completely self-centred... "

― Baltasar Gracián , How to Use Your Enemies