How to Use Your Enemies Quotes

“There's no greater absurdity than taking everything seriously.”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“Cautious silence is the refuge of good sense”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“Deal with people from whom you can learn”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“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

“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

“Everyone could have been pre-eminent at something, if they had been aware of their best quality.”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“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

“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

“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

“Diligence removes impossibilities.”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“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

“Life doesn’t depend on any one opinion, any one custom, or any one century.”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“Everything has its time; even what's outstanding is subject to changing taste.”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“Moderation is necessary even in our desire for knowledge so as not to know things badly.”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“A person has everything who cares nothing about what matters little.”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“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

“Triviality is annoying, and in a person's character, tedious. To keep coming back to a disagreement is a kind of mania.”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“Don't so belong to others that you don't belong to yourself. Even friends should not be abused; you shouldn't want more from them than they're willing to concede. Any extreme is a vice, and especially in dealings with others. Sensible moderation is the best way to maintain goodwill and respect because ever-precious dignity won't be worn away.”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“You are as much as you know, and a wise person can do anything. A person without knowledge is a world in darkness.”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“Don't meddle, and you won't be spurned. Respect yourself, if you want to be respected. Be sparing rather than lavish with your presence. Arrive when wanted, and you'll be well received; never come unless called, nor go unless sent. Someone who gets involved on their own initiative receives all the ill-will if they fail, and none of the thanks if they succeed. A meddler is the target of scorn, and since they brazenly interfere, they are discarded ignominiously.”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“You will never belong entirely to someone else nor they to you. Neither ties of blood, nor friendship, nor the most pressing obligation are sufficient for this, for there's a big difference between opening your heart and surrendering your will. Even the greatest intimacy has its limits, and the laws of courtesy are not offended by this. A friend always keeps some secret to himself and a son conceals something from his father...”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“The art of leaving things alone. Especially when the seas of public or personal life are stormiest. There are whirlwinds in the affairs of men, tempests of the will, and it makes good sense to retire and wait things out in a safe harbour... Let nature or morality take its course.”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“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

“Live as circumstances demand. Ruling, reasoning, everything must be opportune. Act when you can, for time and tide wait for no one. To live, don't follow generalizations, except where virtue is concerned, and don't insist on precise rules for desire, for you'll have to drink tomorrow the water you shunned today...”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“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

“Don't expose your sore finger, or everything will knock against it. Don't complain about your sore points, for malice always attacks where our weaknesses hurt most. Getting annoyed will only serve to spur on someone else's enjoyment. The ill-intentioned are searching for a pretext to get your back up. Their dart-like insinuations aim to discover where you hurt, and they'll try a thousand different ways until they hit upon your most sensitive point. The circumspect pretend not to notice and never reveal their troubles, whether their own or their family's, for even fortune occasionally likes to hit where it hurts most, and it always cuts to the quick.”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“A feigned doubt is curiosity's subtlest picklock.”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“Greater veneration is created by conjecture and uncertainty over the extent of our ability than by firm evidence of this, no matter how vast it might be”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies

“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

“Arrows pierce the body, but harsh words the soul.”
― Baltasar Gracián, How to Use Your Enemies