Miguel de Cervantes Quotes
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Blessings on him, who invented sleep.
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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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All I know is that so long I am asleep I am rid of all fears and hopes and toils and glory, and long live the man who invented sleep, the cloak that covers all human thirst.
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He who sings frightens away his ills.
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Make yourself honey and the flies will devour you.
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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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Arms are my ornaments, warfare my repose.
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The pen is the language of the soul; as the concepts that in it are generated, such will be its writings.
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What is bought is cheaper than a gift.
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There are men that will make you books, and turn them loose into the world, with as much dispatch as they would do a dish of fritters.
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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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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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The cleverest character in comedy is the clown, for he who would make people take him for a fool, must not be one.
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Death eats up all things, both the young lamb and old sheep; and I have heard our parson say, death values a prince no more than a clown.
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The darts of love are blunted by maiden modesty.
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"From what I have seen here," remarked Sancho, "justice is so good a thing that even robbers find it necessary."
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God exalts the man who humbles himself.
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There is also this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it.
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Be not under the dominion of thine own will; it is the vice of the ignorant, who vainly presume on their own understanding.
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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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Spare your breath to cool your porridge.
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One swallow alone does not make a summer.
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It is a true saying that a man must eat a peck of salt with his friend before he knows him.
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But my thoughts ran a wool-gathering; and I did like the countryman, who looked for his ass while he was mounted on his back.