Miguel de Cervantes Quotes

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.

Evil comes not amiss if it comes alone.

Thou hast seen nothing yet.

Once a woman parts with her virtue, she loses the esteem even of the man whose vows and tears won her to abandon it.

Under a bad cloak there is often a good drinker

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.

The wicked are always ungrateful.

Controlling my temper is important, ... Sometimes it's hard, but I try.

For me alone Don Quixote was born and I for him. His was the power of action, mine of writing.

Drink moderately, for drunkeness neither keeps a secret, nor observes a promise.

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.

Delay always heeds danger.

A silly remark can be made in Latin as well as in Spanish.

To withdraw is not to run away, and to stay is no wise action, when there's more reason to fear than to hope.

Be temperate in your drinking, remembering that too much wine cannot keep either a secret or a promise.

They must needs go whom the Devil drives.

The pen is the tongue of the soul; as are the thoughts engendered there, so will be the things written.

There is nothing costs less than civility.

'Tis the maddest trick a man can ever play in his whole life, to let his breath sneak out of his body without any more ado, and without so much as a rap o'er the pate, or a kick of the guts; to go out like the snuff of a farthing candle, and die merely of the mulligrubs, or the sullens.

A wise man does not trust all his eggs to one basket.

It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture of sorrow.

Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes.

Tis a dainty thing to command, though 'twere but a flock of sheep.

Make yourself honey and the flies will devour you.

Every production must resemble its author.

He who's down one day can be up the next, unless he really wants to stay in bed, that is.

Oh Senor" said the niece. "Your grace should send them to be burned (books), just like all the rest, because it's very likely that my dear uncle, having been cured of the chivalric disease, will read these and want to become a shepherd and wander through the woods and meadows singing and playing and, what would be even worse, become a poet, and that, they say, is an incurable and contagious disease.

For a man to attain to an eminent degree in learning costs him time, watching, hunger, nakedness, dizziness in the head, weakness in the stomach, and other inconveniences.

When good luck knocks at the door, let him in and keep him there.

There were but two families in the world, Have-much and Have-little.

Troubles take wing for the man who can sing.

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.

The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.

Though Gods attributes are equal, yet his mercy is more attractive and pleasing in our eyes than his justice.

For let us women be never so ill-favored, I imagine that we are always delighted to hear ourselves called handsome.

Tis an old saying, the Devil lurks behind the cross. All is not gold that glitters. From the tail of the plough, Bamba was made King of Spain; and from his silks and riches was Rodrigo cast to be devoured by the snakes.

Nay, what is worse, perhaps turn poet, which, they say, is an infectious and incurable distemper.

Arms are my ornaments, warfare my repose.

Fortune may have yet a better success in reserve for you and they who lose today may win tomorrow.

It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.

I do not deny that what happened to us is a thing worth laughing at. But it is not worth telling, for not everyone is sufficiently intelligent to be able to see things from the right point of view.

In hell there is no retention.

A blot in thy escutcheon to all futurity.

There are two kinds of beauty, one being of the soul and the other of the body, That of the soul is revealed through intelligence, modesty, right conduct, Generosity and good breeding, all of which qualities may exist in an ugly man; And when one's gaze is fixed upon beauty of this sort and not upon that of the body, Love is usually born suddenly and violently.

Truth will rise above falsehood as oil above water.

When God sends the dawn, he sends it for all.

Let us not throw the rope after the bucket.

God exalts the man who humbles himself.