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
To find one real friend in a lifetime is good fortune; to keep him is a blessing.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Having a single true friend is rare, and maintaining that friendship is a great blessing.
This quote emphasizes the value of genuine friendship, suggesting that it is a rare gift to find someone who truly understands and supports you throughout life. Furthermore, it highlights that sustaining such a relationship over time is not just fortunate, but a significant blessing that enriches oneβs life.
Themes
FriendshipBlessingFortuneConnectionLoyalty
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of friendship, citing this quote can underscore its rarity.
More from Baltasar Gracian
All quotes βIt 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.
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Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than grave teaching.
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It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards.
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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.
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The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.
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I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.
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You cannot get me to be disloyal to a friend. You just can't do it. Loyalty is a part of what I live by. I didn't say I was going to be loyal to my friend because he was right. I'm going to be loyal to my friend because he's my friend.
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Because our expression is imperfect we need friendship to fill up the imperfections.
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For I do not want any one to read my book carelessly. I have suffered too much grief in setting down these memories. Six years have already passed since my friend went away from me, with his sheep. If I try to describe him here, it is to make sure that I shall not forget him. To forget a friend is sad. Not every one has had a friend. And if I forget him, I may become like the grown-ups who are no longer interested in anything but figures.
Antoine De Saint-ExuperyRead