Elon Musk quoted “El arte de la prudencia” (The Art of Discretion) on Twitter, but he is not the first to do so. Baltasar Gracián's books were a hit in the Wall Street of the 1990s and recommended to presidential candidates.

Silicon Valley guru and space explorer Elon Musk (Pretoria, South Africa, 51 years old) recommended this week a couple of books of proverbs by a 17th-century Aragonese philosopher. The richest man in the world was mysteriously explicit when he tweeted: “Baltasar Gracián, manual oracle and art of discretion”. The most striking thing of all is that he wasn't even being original.

The work of Gracián, a baroque intellectual from the Spanish Golden Age, has had several lives over the centuries. And in the last one he has been reincarnated in a self-help book for entrepreneurs.

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