Help others solve their problems; standing farther away, you can often see matters more clearly than they do. . . The greatest service you can render someone else is helping him or her help themselves.
Baltasar GracianRead
Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.
Interpretation
Don't allow small problems to lead to larger, more significant issues.
This quote by Baltasar Gracian warns against the acceptance of minor evils, suggesting that by engaging with or allowing small negative aspects into our lives, we make way for greater, more detrimental ones. It highlights the importance of being vigilant and discerning in our choices, as accepting even minor wrongs can set a precedent for larger ones to follow, ultimately leading us down a path of increasing negativity and complications.
In practice
During a speech about personal integrity, this quote can emphasize the importance of standing firm in one's values.
Help others solve their problems; standing farther away, you can often see matters more clearly than they do. . . The greatest service you can render someone else is helping him or her help themselves.
It is a novel kind of supremacy, the best that life can offer, to have as servants by skill those who by nature are our masters.
Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than grave teaching.
It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards.
Two kinds of people are good at foreseeing danger: those who have learned at their own expense, and the clever people who learn a great deal at the expense of others.
The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.
It is not on the pinnacle of success and ease where men and women grow most. It is often down in the valley of heartache and disappointment and reverses where men and women grow.
I don't write a book so that it will be the final word; I write a book so that other books are possible, not necessarily written by me.
It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life.
I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by Him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security... Let every man and woman know, by the whispering of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not.
Find people not to envy but to admire. Do not the profitable but the admirable deed. Live by ideals.
No durable things are built on violent passion. Nature grows her plants in silence and in darkness, and only when they have become strong do they put their heads above the ground.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.