Renew your brilliance. This is the privilege of the phoenix. Ability grows old, and with it fame. The staleness of custom weakens admiration, and a mediocrity that is new often eclipses the highest excellence grown old. Try therefore to be born again in valor, in genius, in fortune, in everything. Display startling novelty—rise afresh like the sun every day. Change too the scene on which you shine, so that your loss may be felt in the old scenes of your triumph, while the novelty of your powers wins you applause in the new.
THE ART OF WORLDLY WISDOM BY BALTHASAR GRACIAN
TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH JACOBS 1892