Baltasar Gracián y Morales was a Spanish Jesuit and author of several baroque, obscure, laboriously polished books in which he expounded and illustrated conceptism, or metaphysical wit. Conceptism (from concepto, thought) is the quest for fine, brilliant, subtle thoughts expressed in antitheses, ambiguities, new words, and elaborate conceits.

Gracián published only one book under his real name, El Comulgatorio (Sanctuary meditations for priests and frequent communicants; 1655). A book of devotion, it enjoyed great success in several languages until the nineteenth century but is little used today. All his other books were published under pseudonyms without the permission of his superiors, for which offense he was disciplined because their subjects were thought too worldly for a priest, especially at a time when the Society of Jesus was struggling against Jansenism. The first was...