Baltasar Gracian

When you counsel someone, you should appear to be reminding him of something he had forgotten, not of the light he was unable to see.

Maturity is the slowness in which a man believes.

Never lose your self-respect, nor be too familiar with yourself when you are alone. Let your integrity itself be your own standard of rectitude, and be more indebted to the severity of your own judgment of yourself than to all external percepts. Desist from unseemly conduct, rather out of respect for your own virtue than for the strictures of external authority.

Mix a little mystery with everything, for mystery arouses veneration.

Begin with another's to end with your own.

Fools rush in through the door; for folly is always bold.

The sole advantage of power is that you can do more good.

Folly consists not in committing Folly, but in being incapable of concealing it. All men make mistakes, but the wise conceal the blunders they have made, while fools make them public. Reputation depends more on what is hidden than on what is seen. If you can’t be good, be careful.