Miguel De Cervantes

Quotes

• “The Golden Age of Spain (mid-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries) saw a certain reaction against the generally antife...”
• “To withdraw is not to run away, and to stay is no wise action when there is more reason to fear than to hope. 'Tis the p...”
• “Now, blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep! It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloa...”
• “I would have nobody to control me; I would be absolute: and who but I? Now, he that is absolute can do what he likes; he...”
• “It will probably never be possible to prove that Cervantes was a cristiano nuevo, but the circumstantial evidence seems ...”
• “A father may have a child who is ugly and lacking in all the graces, and the love he feels for him puts a blindfold over...”
• “Since Don Quixote de la Mancha is a crazy fool and a madman, and since Sancho Panza, his squire, knows it, yet, for all ...”
• “He has done like Orbaneja, the painter of Ubeda, who, being asked what he painted, answered, "Whatever it may turn out."...”
• “Acontece tener un padre un hijo feo y sin gracia alguna, y el amor que le tiene le pone una venda en los ojos para que n...”
• “Para con ella es de cera mi alma, donde podrá imprimir lo que quisiere, y para conservarlo y guardarlo, no será como imp...”
• “For her my soul is of wax, where she can imprint whatever she pleases; and to preserve and guard it, it will not be as i...”
• “In some village in La Mancha, whose name I do not care to recall, there dwelt not so long ago a gentleman of the type wo...”
• “The greatest height of heroism to which an individual, like a people, can attain is to know how to face ridicule; better...”
• “John Locke, 'Some Thoughts Concerning Reading and Study for a Gentleman' (1703), A Collection of Several Pieces of Mr. J...”
• “Michael McGaha, in "Is There a Hidden Jewish Meaning in Don Quixote?" in the Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of Americ...”
• “There is a strange charm in the thoughts of a good legacy, or the hopes of an estate, which wondrously alleviates the so...”
• “En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no hace mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza ...”
• “History is in a manner a sacred thing, so far as it contains truth; for where truth is, the supreme Father of it may als...”
• “You are a villain and a scoundrel," said Don Quixote, "and you are the one who is vacant and foolish; I have more upstai...”
• “Journey over all the universe in a map, without the expense and fatigue of traveling, without suffering the inconvenienc...”
• “If a governor comes out of his government rich, they say he has been a thief; and if he comes out poor, that he has been...”
• “Of all the books of fiction, I know none that equals Cervantes's History of Don Quixote in usefulness, pleasantry, and a...”
• “There are men that will make you books, and turn them loose into the world, with as much dispatch as they would do a dis...”
• “Sit there, clod-pate!" cried he; "for let me sit wherever I will, that will still be the upper end, and the place of wor...”
• “A little in one's own pocket is better than much in another man's purse. 'Tis good to keep a nest egg. Every little make...”
• “I never thrust my nose into other men's porridge. It is no bread and butter of mine; every man for himself, and God for ...”
• “Let each man say what he chooses; if because of this I am criticized by the ignorant, I shall not be chastised by the le...”
• “Didn't I tell you, Don Quixote, sir, to turn back, for they were not armies you were going to attack, but flocks of shee...”
• “Ch. 33. Note: "Time ripens all things" is the translator's interpolation and does not appear in the original Spanish tex...”
• “My thoughts ran a wool-gathering; and I did like the countryman who looked for his ass while he was mounted on his back.”
• “You are a devil at everything, and there is no kind of thing in the 'versal world but what you can turn your hand to.”
• “After meat comes mustard; or, like money to a starving man at sea, when there are no victuals to be bought with it.”
• “A knight errant who turns mad for a reason deserves neither merit nor thanks. The thing is to do it without cause.”
• “Martin Amis, in his review of Don Quixote in Atlantic Monthly (March 1986); later in The War Against Cliche (2001)”
• “La pluma es la lengua del alma: cuales fueren los conceptos que en ella se engendraren, tales serán sus escritos.”
• “There is a time for some things, and a time for all things; a time for great things, and a time for small things.”
• “Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
• “Miguel de Unamuno, "Don Quixote in the Contemporary European Tragi-Comedy," The Tragic Sense of Life (1913)”
• “The soldier who executes his captain's commands is no less valuable than the captain who gave the order.”
• “When a man says, "Get out of my house! what would you have with my wife?" there is no answer to be made.”
• “Aun entre los demonios hay unos peores que otros, y entre muchos malos hombres suele haber alguno bueno.”
• “In me the need to talk is a primary impulse, and I can't help saying right off what comes to my tongue.”
• “The pen is the tongue of the soul; as are the thoughts engendered there, so will be the things written.”
• “Love and War are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the one as in the other.”
• “Many count their chickens before they are hatched; and where they expect bacon, meet with broken bones.”
• “Y así, del poco dormir y del mucho leer, se le secó el cerebro, de manera que vino a perder el juicio.”
• “Now had Aurora displayed her mantle over the blushing skies, and dark night withdrawn her sable veil.”
• “There is a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us out flat some time or other.”
• “Even among the fiends there are some worse than others, and among many bad men you may find one good.”
• “By the things they say I did when I was mad, you can consider what I shall say and do when I am sane.”