Know your chief asset, your great talent. Cultivate it, and help along the others. Anyone might have attained eminence in something, had he but known his advantage. Discover therefore your best attribute, and exploit it fully. Some excel in judgement, others in courage. Most violate their Minerva, and thus rise to the heights in nothing. For what is too quick in satisfying the passion is too late in pointing out its error.
~ Baltasar Gracian, The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)