The Art of Worldly Wisdom is considered a masterpiece of Spanish Baroque literature. The work presents a collection of aphorisms, with commentary on various subjects, offering advice and guidance on how to live the best life and evolve as a human being. Written in 1647 by Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601 – 1658), a Spanish writer, thinker, and Jesuit, it is a work belonging to didactic prose. The book contains three hundred precious aphorisms with commentary, which provide a set of rules and guidelines for achieving success in a complex and crisis-ridden society, as it was in his time and continues to be today, since human nature has hardly changed at all. The work contains such relevant knowledge that it was translated into German by Schopenhauer and influenced other great thinkers such as Nietzsche, Voltaire, and Jacques Lacan.
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Baltasar Gracián y Morales (Belmonte de Calatayud, província de Saragoça, 8 de janeiro de 1601 – Tarazona , província de Saragoça , 6 de dezembro de 1658) foi um jesuíta e escritor pertencente ao Século de Ouro Espanhol , assim como o poeta Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1654) e o dramaturgo e poeta Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681). Dentre as obras mais importantes de Gracián encontra-se a obra The Art of Worldly Wisdom i