Miguel de Cervantes Quotes
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Translating from one language to another, unless it is from Greek and Latin, the queens of all languages, is like looking at Flemish tapestries from the wrong side, for although the figures are visible, they are covered by threads that obscure them, and cannot be seen with the smoothness and color of the right side.
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It is not the responsibility of knights errant to discover whether the afflicted, the enchained and the oppressed whom they encounter on the road are reduced to these circumstances and suffer this distress for their vices, or for their virtues: the knight's sole responsibility is to succour them as people in need, having eyes only for their sufferings, not for their misdeeds.
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Translation from one language to another is like viewing a piece of tapestry on the wrong side where though the figures are distinguishable yet there are so many ends and threads that the beauty and exactness of the work is obscured.
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Valor lies just halfway between rashness and cowardice.
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Nor has his death the world deceived than his wondrous life surprised; if he like a madman lived least he like a wise one died.
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Truth will rise above falsehood as oil above water.
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Honesty is the best policy, I will stick to that. The good shall have my hand and heart, but the bad neither foot nor fellowship. And in my mind, the main point of governing, is to make a good beginning.
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"He preaches well that lives well," quoth Sancho, "that's all the divinity I can understand."
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He who gives early gives twice.
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To withdraw is not to run away, and to stay is no wise action, when there's more reason to fear than to hope.
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Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.
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If thou takest virtue for the rule of life, and valuest thyself upon acting in all things comfortably thereto, thou wilt have no cause to envy lords and princes; for blood is inherited, but virtue is common property, and may be acquired by all; it has, moreover, an intrinsic worth, which blood has not.
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There's no sauce in the world like hunger.
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Take my advice and live for a long, long time. Because the maddest thing a man can do is this life is to let himself die.
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Controlling my temper is important, ... Sometimes it's hard, but I try.
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He is mad past recovery, but yet he has lucid intervals.
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There are but few proverbial sayings that are not true, for they are all drawn from experience itself, which is the mother of all sciences.
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Men of great talents, whether poets or historians, seldom escape the attacks of those who, without ever favoring the world with any production of their own, take delight in criticising the works of others.
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God exalts the man who humbles himself.
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And thus being totally preoccupied, he rode so slowly that the sun was soon glowing with such intense heat that it would have melted his brains, if he'd had any.
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He who sings frightens away his ills.
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In every case, the remedy is to take action. Get clear about exactly what it is that you need to learn and exactly what you need to do to learn it. BEING CLEAR KILLS FEAR. Make it thy business to know thyself, which is the most difficult lesson in the world.
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One swallow alone does not make a summer.
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Arms are my ornaments, warfare my repose.