Miguel De Cervantes

Absence -- that common cure of love.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our own deeds.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

Mere flimflam stories, and nothing but shams and lies.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Take away the cause, and the effect ceases.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

Be slow of tongue and quick of eye.

— Miguel De Cervantes

I have always heard, Sancho, that doing good to base fellows is like throwing water into the sea.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Tell me thy company, and I'll tell thee what thou art.

— Miguel De Cervantes

He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Faint heart never won fair lady.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Those who'll play with cats must expect to be scratched.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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; all's fish that comes to his net; he throws at all, and sweeps stakes; he's no mower that takes a nap at noon-day, but drives on, fair weather or foul, and cuts down the green grass as well as the ripe corn: he's neither squeamish nor queesy-stomach d, for he swallows without chewing, and crams down all things into his ungracious maw; and you can see no belly he has, he has a confounded dropsy, and thirsts after men's lives, which he gurgles down like mother's milk.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

There's no taking trout with dry breeches.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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.

— Miguel De Cervantes

He had a face like a blessing.

— Miguel De Cervantes

The eyes those silent tongues of love.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Fear has many eyes and can see things underground.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

Man appoints, and God disappoints.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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?

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

A person dishonored is worst than dead.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Jests that give pains are no jests.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Fair and softly goes far.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

Laziness never arrived at the attainment of a good wish.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Miracle me no miracles.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

Alas! all music jars when the soul's out of tune.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Good painters imitate nature, bad ones spew it up.

— Miguel De Cervantes

No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Patience and shuffle the cards.

— Miguel De Cervantes

And for the citation of so many authors, 'tis the easiest thing in nature. Find out one of these books with an alphabetical index, and without any farther ceremony, remove it verbatim into your own... there are fools enough to be thus drawn into an opinion of the work; at least, such a flourishing train of attendants will give your book a fashionable air, and recommend it for sale.

— Miguel De Cervantes

To be prepared is half the victory.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Thou hast seen nothing yet.

— Miguel De Cervantes

A blot in thy escutcheon to all futurity.

— Miguel De Cervantes

He preaches well that lives well.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.

— Miguel De Cervantes

A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Hold you there, neither a strange hand nor my own, neither heavy nor light shall touch my bum.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

Well, now there's a remedy for everything except death.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

No man is more than another unless he does more than another.

— Miguel De Cervantes

A private sin is not so prejudicial in this world, as a public indecency.

— Miguel De Cervantes

By such innovations are languages enriched, when the words are adopted by the multitude, and naturalized by custom.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

Now blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep: it covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; 'Tis meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot. 'Tis 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. There is only one thing that I dislike in sleep; 'Tis that it resembles death; there's very little difference between a man in his first sleep, and a man in his last sleep.

— Miguel De Cervantes

One shouldn't talk of halters in the hanged man's house.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Tis ill talking of halters in the house of a man that was hanged.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as oil does above water.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Truth will rise above falsehood as oil above water.

— Miguel De Cervantes

True valor lies between cowardice and rashness.

— Miguel De Cervantes

That which costs little is less valued.

— Miguel De Cervantes

The knowledge of yourself will preserve you from vanity.

— Miguel De Cervantes

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

— Miguel De Cervantes

God bears with the wicked, but not forever.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.

— Miguel De Cervantes

Every man is the son of his own works.

— Miguel De Cervantes

The brave man carves out his fortune, and every man is the son of his own works.

— Miguel De Cervantes

The man who is prepared has his battle half fought.

— Miguel De Cervantes