The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle [Hardcover]

Gracian had a splendid understanding of human nature. This book is just phenomenal, and it is not intended to be read and left on the shelf, it must be digested little by little, like the Book of Proverbs.
His insights have been copied and rewritten all the time, because they are universal in nature. It is interesting to notice that even though Gracian gives counsel on how to deal with people and even enemies, the BIG difference we see in him when compared with other authors like Machiavelli (whom Gracian detested) is his love for virtues like courage, generosity and kindness.
Gracian writes in order to make people become better human beings, not to give advice on how to win a war or have success in business, with a finesse that unfortunately is not found easily any more in our brute and materialistic world of today.

I received this book as a gift in 1992, I had no idea what I had been given..The Art Of Wordly Wisdom, is "THE" guide to Human Nature, a Handbook on Life, It is a brilliant how it describes human nature/behavior in all scopes of life's pursuits and how to handle any situation, not based on incident but based on human reaction and interaction to the incident...The writings are ageless, the book should be in everyone's library and read often..It is not a one read book, but one you can take out when dealing with whatever life may throw at you...I have used it and I have never found anything better on human nature and it always find a way of getting you out of the worst and even the best of situations. It is not religious, not new age teachings,not cult, it is common sense,you could say psychology by examples of life and people....
Nietzche and Shopenhauer were fans of Gracian, but none ever reached his clarity and accessibility..THE translation by Christopher Maurer is the ONLY ONE worth reading, for he is as clear as Gracian...Don't bother with the rest...
Baltasar Gracian is a man still ahead of his time...

Gracian's "Oracle" as it has been known through the past four centuries has its admirers and detractors, but none may honestly deny its charisma, and, as far as we can tell, eternal, relevance. Gracian himself was an apostate Jesuit, in fact, an early associate of Loyola, i.e., a disenfranchised charter member. One gets the feeling that Gracian was simply too much for his fellows - his insight into their 'sins' too penetrating even for the putatively penitent.
In the deepest Augustinian sense - where 'sin' is that which brings us misery - Gracian turns his great insight - that sin is folly & folly is sin - to its most beneficial application in his economic, witty, utile, most often profound guide to prudentia (practical wisdom), that venerable, yet too often elusive, lynchpin of virtue... and success.
As Maurer tells us in his informative introduction to what is in my opinion - the definitive English translation (I can vouch only for its impact)- that Gracian learned from his former illustrious associate Aphorism 251: "Use human means as though divine ones didn't exist, and divine means as though there were no human ones". I claim that Gracian uses both - to the most efficacious extent in this slender, but ever deeper masterpiece.
To the aphorisms, themselves!
I can't list all my favorites. I'd end up hand-copying almost the entire work, and it would take a lifetime to begin sorting out what might be best. Besides, I'd rather spend my time attempting to apply the wisdom found here, though I can but hope to master the bulk of it, try as I might. More hopefully, bits and pieces of a few will encourage you to pick up a book we might all do well to read more in.

"The art of moving people's wills involves more skill than determination. You must know how to get inside the other person. Each will has its own special object of delight;they vary according to taste. Everyone idolizes something... The trick is to identify the idols that can set people in motion."

"Love - if you would be loved."

"Feel with the few, speak with the many."

"The prudent show restraint, and would rather fall short than long. True eminences are rare, so temper your esteem. To overvalue something is a form of lying."

"... there is more courage in avoiding danger than in conquering it."

"Know how to wait. It shows a great heart with deep reserves of patience. Never hurry and never give way to your emotions. Master yourself and you will master others. Stroll through the open spaces of time to the center of opportunity. Wise hesitation ripens success and brings secrets to maturity."

"End well. If you enter the house of Fortune through the door of pleasure, you will leave through the door of sorrow, and vice versa. So be careful of the way you end things, and devote more attention to a successful exit than to a highly applauded entrance. Fortunate people often have very favorable beginnings and very tragic endings. What matters isn't being applauded when you arrive - for that is common - but being missed when you leave. Rare are those who are still wanted. Fortune seldom accompanies someone to the door."

"The wise do sooner what fools do later. Both do the same, the difference is when."

"Never come unless you're called, never go unless you are sent."

"Know your major defect. Every talent is balanced by a fault, and if you give into it, it will govern you like a tyrant. You can begin to overthrow it by paying heed to it: begin to conquer it by identifying it. Pay it the same attention as those who reproach you for it."

"Know how to take things. Never against the grain, though they're handed to you that way. There are two sides to everything. If you grab the blade, the best thing will do you harm; the most harmful with defend you if you seize it by the hilt."

"Live neither entirely for yourself, nor for others. It is a vulgar sort of tyranny."

"There are more days than luck. Be quick to act, slow to enjoy."

"Speak as if you were making out your will... the fewer words, the fewer lawsuits."

"Don't wait to be a setting sun. It is a maxim of prudent people to abandon things before being abandoned by them."