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Miguel De Cervantes Quotes
“Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes.”
“Valor lies just halfway between rashness and cowardice.”
“To be prepared is half the victory.”
“Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory.”
“Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.”
“Our hours in love have wings; in absence, crutches.”
“In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.”
“The eyes those silent tongues of love.”
“He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all.”
“Truth will rise above falsehood as oil above water.”
“One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world will be better for this.”
“Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.”
“Fear has many eyes and can see things underground.”
“A closed mouth catches no flies.”
“God bears with the wicked, but not forever.”
“The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part.”
“A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.”
“Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.”
“Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.”
“Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as does oil above water.”
“Drink moderately, for drunkeness neither keeps a secret, nor observes a promise.”
“That's the nature of women, not to love when we love them, and to love when we love them not.”
“Those who'll play with cats must expect to be scratched.”
“Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.”
“Modesty, tis a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world.”
“It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.”
“Tell me thy company, and I'll tell thee what thou art.”
“Love and war are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the one as in the other.”
“That which costs little is less valued.”
“The bow cannot always stand bent, nor can human frailty subsist without some lawful recreation.”
“No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly.”
“A person dishonored is worst than dead.”
“There are only two families in the world, my old grandmother used to say, the Haves and the Have-nots.”
“The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.”
“A private sin is not so prejudicial in this world, as a public indecency.”
“The knowledge of yourself will preserve you from vanity.”
“He preaches well that lives well.”
“When thou art at Rome, do as they do at Rome.”
“True valor lies between cowardice and rashness.”
“It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture of sorrow.”
“From reading too much, and sleeping too little, his brain dried up on him and he lost his judgment.”
“Well, there's a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us flat one time or other.”
“Alas! all music jars when the soul's out of tune.”
“Every man is the son of his own works.”
“When the severity of the law is to be softened, let pity, not bribes, be the motive.”
“There's no taking trout with dry breeches.”
“Laziness never arrived at the attainment of a good wish.”
“I believe there's no proverb but what is true; they are all so many sentences and maxims drawn from experience, the universal mother of sciences.”
“Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our deeds.”
“Man appoints, and God disappoints.”
“Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes.”
“I have always heard, Sancho, that doing good to base fellows is like throwing water into the sea.”
“One of the most considerable advantages the great have over their inferiors is to have servants as good as themselves.”
“Virtue is the truest nobility.”
“Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.”
“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.”
“Truth indeed rather alleviates than hurts, and will always bear up against falsehood, as oil does above water.”
“There is nothing so subject to the inconstancy of fortune as war.”
“No padlocks, bolts, or bars can secure a maiden better than her own reserve.”
“Thou hast seen nothing yet.”
“Liberty, as well as honor, man ought to preserve at the hazard of his life, for without it life is insupportable.”
“Jests that give pains are no jests.”
“To withdraw is not to run away, and to stay is no wise action, when there's more reason to fear than to hope.”
“There is no greater folly in the world than for a man to despair.”
“Tis a dainty thing to command, though twere but a flock of sheep.”
“Fair and softly goes far.”
“Pray look better, Sir... those things yonder are no giants, but windmills.”
“'Tis ill talking of halters in the house of a man that was hanged.”
“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.”
“I do not say a proverb is amiss when aptly and reasonably applied, but to be forever discharging them, right or wrong, hit or miss, renders conversation insipid and vulgar.”
“Be a terror to the butchers, that they may be fair in their weight; and keep hucksters and fraudulent dealers in awe, for the same reason.”
“Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.”
“He had a face like a blessing.”
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
“The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.”
“The proof of the pudding is the eating.”
“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!”
“All I know is that while I'm asleep, I'm never afraid, and I have no hopes, no struggles, no glories — and bless the man who invented sleep, a cloak over all human thought, food that drives away hunger, water that banishes thirst, fire that heats up cold,”
“There is no book so bad...that it does not have something good in it.”
“There were no embraces, because where there is great love there is often little display of it.”
“The reason for the unreason with which you treat my reason , so weakens my reason that with reason I complain of your beauty.”
“Hunger is the best sauce in the world.”
“For neither good nor evil can last for ever; and so it follows that as evil has lasted a long time, good must now be close at hand.”
“I know who I am and who I may be, if I choose.”
“All sorrows are less with bread.”
“Until death it is all life.”
“Virtue is persecuted by the wicked more than it is loved by the good.”
“He who sings scares away his woes.”
“What man can pretend to know the riddle of a woman's mind?”
“Take my advice and live for a long, long time. Because the maddest thing a man can do in this life is to let himself die.”
“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.”
“The pen is the tongue of the mind.”
“Facts are the enemy of truth.”
“Remember that there are two kinds of beauty: one of the soul and the other of the body. That of the soul displays its radiance in intelligence, in chastity, in good conduct, in generosity, and in good breeding, and all these qualities may exist in an ugly”
