Quotes by Cervantes, Miguel De

"Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes."

Cervantes, Miguel De on diligence   

"No padlocks, bolts, or bars can secure a maiden better than her own reserve."

Cervantes, Miguel De on discipline   

"There is no greater folly in the world than for a man to despair."

Cervantes, Miguel De on doubt   

"There's no taking trout with dry breeches."

Cervantes, Miguel De on effort   

"Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within."

Cervantes, Miguel De on enemies
10 fans of this quote   

"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."

Cervantes, Miguel De on epitaphs   

"He had a face like a blessing."

Cervantes, Miguel De on faces   

"The eyes those silent tongues of love."

Cervantes, Miguel De on faces
6 fans of this quote   

"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."

Cervantes, Miguel De on fame
3 fans of this quote   

"Fear has many eyes and can see things underground."

Cervantes, Miguel De on fear   

"He is mad past recovery, but yet he has lucid intervals."

Cervantes, Miguel De on fools and foolishness
4 fans of this quote   

"Liberty is one of the most precious gifts which heaven has bestowed on man; with it we cannot compare the treasures which the earth contains or the sea conceals; for liberty, as for honor, we can and ought to risk our lives; and, on for the other hand, captivity is the greatest evil that can befall man."

Cervantes, Miguel De on freedom   

"A man must eat a peck of salt with his friend, before he knows him."

Cervantes, Miguel De on friends and friendship   

"By the street of by-and-by, one arrives at the house of never."

Cervantes, Miguel De on the future   

"Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn."

Cervantes, Miguel De on aid and assistance
5 fans of this quote   

"Man appoints, and God disappoints."

Cervantes, Miguel De on god   

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"Though God's attributes are equal, yet his mercy is more attractive and pleasing in our eyes than his justice."

Cervantes, Miguel De on god   

"Among the attributes of God, although they are equal, mercy shines with even more brilliance than justice."

Cervantes, Miguel De on god   

"Thou camest out of thy mother's belly without government, thou hast liv'd hitherto without government, and thou mayst be carried to thy long home without government, when it shall please the Lord. How many people in this world live without government, yet do well enough, and are well look'd upon?"

Cervantes, Miguel De on government   

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

Cervantes, Miguel De on happiness   

"For historians ought to be precise, truthful, and quite unprejudiced, and neither interest nor fear, hatred nor affection, should cause them to swerve from the path of truth, whose mother is history, the rival of time, the depository of great actions, the witness of what is past, the example and instruction of the present, the monitor of the future."

Cervantes, Miguel De on history and historians   

"You are a king by your own fireside, as much as any monarch in his throne."

Cervantes, Miguel De on home   

"A person dishonored is worst than dead."

Cervantes, Miguel De on honor
3 fans of this quote   

"The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise."

Cervantes, Miguel De on hope
21 fans of this quote   

"Everyone is as God made him, and often a great deal worse."

Cervantes, Miguel De on humankind   

"Pray look better, Sir... those things yonder are no giants, but windmills."

Cervantes, Miguel De on illusion   

"My grandma (rest her soul) used to say, There were but two families in the world, have-much and have-little."

Cervantes, Miguel De on inequality   

"There is a strange charm in the thoughts of a good legacy, or the hopes of an estate, which wondrously removes or at least alleviates the sorrow that men would otherwise feel for the death of friends."

Cervantes, Miguel De on inheritance   

"Jests that give pains are no jests."

Cervantes, Miguel De on jest   

"Fair and softly goes far."

Cervantes, Miguel De on kindness   

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

Cervantes, Miguel De on law and lawyers   

"Laziness never arrived at the attainment of a good wish."

Cervantes, Miguel De on laziness   

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

Cervantes, Miguel De on leadership   

"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."

Cervantes, Miguel De on learning   

"She fights and vanquishes in me, and I live and breathe in her, and I have life and being."

Cervantes, Miguel De on life   

"The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part."

Cervantes, Miguel De on acting and actors   

"Love and war are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the one as in the other."

Cervantes, Miguel De on love
6 fans of this quote   

"'Tis said of love that it sometimes goes, sometimes flies; runs with one, walks gravely with another; turns a third into ice, and sets a fourth in a flame: it wounds one, another it kills: like lightning it begins and ends in the same moment: it makes that fort yield at night which it besieged but in the morning; for there is no force able to resist it."

Cervantes, Miguel De on love
14 fans of this quote   

"One who has not only the four S's, which are required in every good lover, but even the whole alphabet; as for example... Agreeable, Bountiful, Constant, Dutiful, Easy, Faithful, Gallant, Honorable, Ingenious, Kind, Loyal, Mild, Noble, Officious, Prudent, Quiet, Rich, Secret, True, Valiant, Wise; the X indeed, is too harsh a letter to agree with him, but he is Young and Zealous."

Cervantes, Miguel De on love
3 fans of this quote   

"Miracle me no miracles."

Cervantes, Miguel De on miracles