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.
Primum non nocerum. (First do no harm)
A traveler of taste will notice that the wise are polite all over the world, but the fool only at home.
Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.
The most baleful mischiefs may be expected from the unmanly conduct of not daring to face truth because it is unpleasing.
Learn to say 'no' to the good so you can say 'yes' to the best.
A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth.
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