Miguel de Cervantes Quotes

When the severity of the law is to be softened, let pity, not bribes, be the motive.

He had a face like a blessing.

The pen is the language of the soul; as the concepts that in it are generated, such will be its writings.

Modesty, tis a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world.

All the vices, Sancho, bring some kind of pleasure with them; but envy brings nothing but irritation, bitterness, and rage.

Now, blessings light on him that first invented sleep!Ê It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; it is meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot.Ê It is the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap, and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise man, even.

Well, there's a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us flat one time or other.

Love is a power too strong to be overcome by anything but flight.

Be slow of tongue and quick of eye.

My heart is wax molded as she pleases, but enduring as marble to retain.

Reading Don Quixote can be compared to an indefinite visit from your most impossible senior relative, with all his pranks, dirty habits, unstoppable reminiscences, and terrible cronies. When the experience is over, and the old boy checks out at last (on page 846 - the prose wedged tight, with no breaks for dialogue), you will shed tears all right; not tears of relief or regret but tears of pride. You made it, despite all that 'Don Quixote' could do.

All sorrows are bearable, if there is bread.

A man prepared has half fought the battle.

Treason pleases, but not the traitor.

One of the effects of fear is to disturb the senses and cause things to appear other than what they are.

No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly; and this self-deceit is yet stronger with respect to the offspring of the mind.

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.

Sancho Panza by name is my own self, if I was not changed in my cradle.

Love is invisible and comes and goes where it wants, without anyone asking about it.

The proof is in the pudding.

Never meddle with play-actors, for they're a favoured race.

Sorrow was made for man, not for beasts; yet if men encourage melancholy too much, they become no better than beasts.

The foolish sayings of the rich pass for wise saws in society.

The wise hand does not all the tongue dictates.

Every dog has his day.

I can tell where my own shoe pinches me.

Valor lies just halfway between rashness and cowardice.

Heaven's help is better than early rising.

One of the most considerable advantages the great have over their inferiors is to have servants as good as themselves.

In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.

The bow cannot always stand bent, nor can human frailty subsist without some lawful recreation.

Thank you for nothing.

Captivity is the greatest of all evils that can befall one.

My thoughts ran a wool-gathering.

If you are ambitious of climbing up to the difficult, and in a manner inaccessible, summit of the Temple of Fame, your surest way is to leave on one hand the narrow path of Poetry, and follow the narrower track of Knight-Errantry, which in a trice may raise you to an imperial throne.

Inasmuch as ill-deeds spring up as a spontaneous crop, they are easy to learn.

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.

The pitcher goes so often to the fountain that if gets broken.

Nor has his death the world deceiv'd than his wondrous life surprise d; if he like a madman liv'd least he like a wise one dy'd.

The guts carry the feet, not the feet the guts.

Thou art a cat, and a rat, and a coward.

Where there's music there can be no evil.

An honest man's word is as good as his bond.

It is courage that vanquishes in war, and not good weapons.

Behind the cross is the devil.

He that gives quickly gives twice.

To be good to the vile is to throw water into the sea.

The eating. By a small sample we may judge of the whole piece.