Baltasar Gracián
Author biography. Trumpet Publishing House Authors Directory.
Who he was
Baltasar Gracián was born in 1601 near Calatayud in Aragon, Spain, and died in 1658. He was a Jesuit priest, a professor, and for a time a military chaplain who was present at the siege of Lerida.
He spent his working life among courtiers, patrons and soldiers, and he published most of his books without his order's permission, under a thinly disguised version of his brother's name. The Jesuits eventually disciplined him for it, confined him, and he died not long after.
Why he wrote it
The Art of Worldly Wisdom appeared in 1647, three hundred short maxims distilled from a life spent watching people manage each other.
Spain in his lifetime was a declining empire with an inflated court, where advancement depended on patronage and a misjudged word could finish a career. The book is written for a man who has to survive that without a powerful family behind him. It is not cynical so much as unillusioned, which is a different thing.
The book we publish, and why
We publish The Art of Worldly Wisdom because it is the original of a genre that has been repackaged a hundred times since, and it is better than any of the repackagings.
How to tell a real friend from someone using you. When to speak and when to say nothing. How to leave while you are still wanted. How to keep your dignity among people who have none. Schopenhauer thought enough of it to translate it into German himself. Robert Greene mined it for The 48 Laws of Power.
If you have read the modern derivatives, this is the source, and it is considerably shorter. You get the short version, straight, from a man who had to live by it.
How to read it
Never in order and never in bulk. Three hundred maxims read end to end turn into noise by about the fortieth. Open it anywhere, read two or three, and shut it.
Many maxims contradict each other, and that is deliberate rather than careless. He is not building a system. He is describing situations, and the skill he is teaching is judging which situation you are actually in.
His style is compressed to the point of difficulty; a good deal is lost in a bad translation. Read a maxim twice before deciding it is obvious. The second reading usually finds the edge on it.
Pair it with
- Machiavelli, The Prince. Machiavelli on how power is taken and held; Gracián on how to survive in the room with the people doing it.
- Plutarch, Parallel Lives, which supplies the worked examples for nearly every maxim Gracián states in the abstract.
- Thomas à Kempis, as the deliberate counterweight. Gracián teaches you to manage your reputation; à Kempis asks why you care about it.
His works
- The Hero, 1637.
- The Politician, 1640. A study of Ferdinand of Aragon.
- The Art of Ingenuity, 1642, revised 1648. His treatise on wit and style.
- The Discreet Man, 1646.
- The Art of Worldly Wisdom, 1647. Three hundred maxims.
- El Criticón, in three parts, 1651, 1653 and 1657. His long allegorical novel, and the work that got him into the most trouble with his order.
- The Communion Rail, 1655. The only book he published under his own name and with permission.
General reference on Baltasar Gracián. External links open outside Trumpet Publishing House.
Our editions
This collection grows as further editions and formats are added, so it is worth returning to.
All Trumpet editions by Baltasar Gracián
The Art of Worldly Wisdom, Hardcover