Quotation by Baltasar Gracián
Know the essence and the right time of things, and know how to use them.
Modern translation by the editorial team, based on the cited French edition.
Title of a maxim, translated from the historical French edition. Read in the context of seventeenth-century court society.
Original French text
Connaître l’essence et la saison des choses, et savoir s’en servir.L’Homme de cour, maxime XXXIX, traduction Amelot de la Houssaie, 1684