Baltasar Gracián

Baltasar Gracián was born in Aragon in Spain in 1601 and joined the Jesuits at eighteen. He taught philosophy and theology at several Jesuit colleges, served as an army chaplain and was one of the most famous preachers in Spain. His witty, concentrated, aphoristic style is the model of conceptismo, the 'conceptist' style of the Spanish Baroque. Most of his works were published without his order's approval under his brother's name, for which his superiors repeatedly disciplined him; late in life he was put on bread and water and sent to a remote town, where he soon died. Schopenhauer admired him greatly and translated The Art of Worldly Wisdom into German himself.