QuoteProject
Keep the extent of your abilities unknown.The wise man does not allow his knowledge and abilities to be sounded to the bottom, if he desires to be honored at all. He allows you to know them but not to comprehend them. No one must know the extent of his abilities, lest he be disappointed. No one ever has an opportunity of fathoming him entirely. For guesses and doubts about the extent of his talents arouse more veneration than accurate knowledge of them, be they ever so great.
Baltasar Gracian
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote suggests that one should keep their true abilities and knowledge concealed to maintain respect and admiration from others.

The quote by Baltasar Gracian emphasizes the importance of discretion regarding one's abilities and knowledge. By not revealing the full extent of what one can do, they create an air of mystery that earns them more respect and awe than if they were fully known. This protects the individual from disappointment and ensures that others remain intrigued and respectful, as uncertainty about someone's capabilities can foster admiration.

Themes

AbilitiesWisdomKnowledgeMysteryAdmiration

In practice

Example use cases

A mentor might use this quote to guide their students on the importance of humility.

More from Baltasar Gracian

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
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.
Baltasar GracianRead
Advice is sometimes transmitted more successfully through a joke than grave teaching.
Baltasar GracianRead
It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards.
Baltasar GracianRead
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.
Baltasar GracianRead
The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.
Baltasar GracianRead

Similar quotes

During bad circumstances, which is the human inheritance, you must decide not to be reduced. You have your humanity, and you must not allow anything to reduce that. We are obliged to know we are global citizens. Disasters remind us we are world citizens, whether we like it or not.
Maya AngelouRead
And at the time, it is funny how you can look at something and say, for example with my shoulder injury, when it first happened I said this is the worst thing that could happen to me. Why me, why now? Now I look back and say it was probably the best thing that happened to me
Drew BreesRead
Real wealth is ideas plus energy.
R. Buckminster FullerRead
Good thoughts are no better than good dreams if you don't follow through.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
You must ask for God's help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again.
C. S. LewisRead
Suffering lets us see where are attachments are - and that helps us get free.
Ram DassRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.