Cervantes, Miguel De quotes

1547-1616 Spanish Novelist Dramatist Poet

Tell me thy company, and I ll tell thee what thou art.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Company

Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Creation

Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Enemies

Faint heart never won fair lady.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Coward and Cowardice

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

Be slow of tongue and quick of eye.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Caution

Take away the cause, and the effect ceases.
Cervantes, Miguel de
Causes

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

There is no greater folly in the world than for a man to despair.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Doubt

Well, there s a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us flat one time or other.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Death and Dying

Mere flimflam stories, and nothing but shams and lies.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Bragging

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.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Death and Dying

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.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Death and Dying

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
Diligence

A person dishonored is worst than dead.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Honor

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
History and Historians

By the street of by-and-by, one arrives at the house of never.
Cervantes, Miguel de
Future

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
Epitaphs

A man must eat a peck of salt with his friend, before he knows him.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Friends and Friendship

Man appoints, and God disappoints.
Cervantes, Miguel De
God

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

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

He is mad past recovery, but yet he has lucid intervals.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Fools and Foolishness

He had a face like a blessing.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Faces

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
Government

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
Freedom

Fear has many eyes and can see things underground.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Fear

The eyes those silent tongues of love.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Faces

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

Tis a dainty thing to command, though twere but a flock of sheep.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Leaders and 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
Learning

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
Hope

Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Procrastination

Fair and softly goes far.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Kindness

She fights and vanquishes in me, and I live and breathe in her, and I have life and being.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Life and Living

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
Inheritance

Everyone is as God made him, and often a great deal worse.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Humankind

Jests that give pains are no jests.
Cervantes, Miguel de
Jest

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

Pray look better, Sir... those things yonder are no giants, but windmills.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Illusion

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
Love

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
Lovers

Laziness never arrived at the attainment of a good wish.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Laziness

When the severity of the law is to be softened, let pity, not bribes, be the motive.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Law and Lawyers

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

Good painters imitate nature, bad ones spew it up.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Painters and Painting

Miracle me no miracles.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Miracles

Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Misers and Misery

Alas! all music jars when the soul s out of tune.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Music

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.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Plagiarism

Thou hast seen nothing yet.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Possibilities

To be prepared is half the victory.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Planning

He preaches well that lives well.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Preachers and Preaching

No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Parents and Parenting

A blot in thy escutcheon to all futurity.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Posterity

Patience and shuffle the cards.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Patience

One shouldn t talk of halters in the hanged man s house.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Tact and Tactfulness

No man is more than another unless he does more than another.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Service

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.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Sleep

Captivity is the greatest of all evils that can befall one.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Slavery

Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Proverbs

The greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Self-Conflict

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

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

Tis ill talking of halters in the house of a man that was hanged.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Tact and Tactfulness

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

A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Proverbs

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

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

One of the most considerable advantages the great have over their inferiors is to have servants as good as themselves.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Servants

Truth will rise above falsehood as oil above water.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Truth

Well, now there s a remedy for everything except death.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Remedies

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.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Proverbs

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.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Proverbs

Absence -- that common cure of love.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Absence

He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Courage

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
Fame

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

Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Aid and Assistance

Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our own deeds.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Action

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

There s no taking trout with dry breeches.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Effort

Those who ll play with cats must expect to be scratched.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Danger

Every man is the son of his own works.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Work

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

The knowledge of yourself will preserve you from vanity.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Vanity

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

Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Wisdom

God bears with the wicked, but not forever.
Cervantes, Miguel de
Wickedness

That which costs little is less valued.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Value

True valor lies between cowardice and rashness.
Cervantes, Miguel De
Valor