Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“In the shadow of feigned cripples and false wounds come the strong arms of thieves and very healthy drunkards.”

“...aunque pusieron silencio a las lenguas, no le pudieron poner a las plumas, las cuales, con más libertad que las lenguas, suelen dar a entender a quien quieren lo que en el alma esta encerrado: que muchas veces la presencia de la cosa amada turba y enmudece la intención más determinada y la lengua más atrevida." - Don Quijote de la Mancha, Parte I, Cap. XXIV”

“Çocuklar karıştırıyor, gençler okuyor, yetişkinler anlıyor, yaşlılar yüceltiyor.”

“They must take me for a fool, or even worse, a lunatic. And no wonder ,for I am so intensely conscious of my misfortune and my misery is so overwhelming that I am powerless to resist it and am being turned into stone, devoid of all knowledge or feeling.”

“...for hope is always born at the same time as love...”

“Con la Iglesia hemos topado, amigo Sancho.”

“Yo sé quien soy...”

“Rocinante felt the desire to pleasure himself with the ladies, and as soon as he picked up their scent he abandoned his natural ways and customs, did not ask permission of his owner, broke into a brisk little trot, and went off to communicate his need to them.”

“What intelligent things you say sometimes ! One would think you had studied.”

“Woman is made of fragile glass;but do not put her to the testto see if she will break,for that might come to pass.She is too apt to shatter,and wisdom is surely endedif what can ne'er be mendedis put in the way of danger.What I say to you is true,and let us all agree :wherever Danae may be,showers of gold are there, too.”

“By the Blessed Virgin ! Is it possible that your grace is so thickheaded and so short on brains that you cannot see that what I'm telling you is the absolute truth.”

“The most perceptive character in a play is the fool, because the man who wishes to seem simple cannot possibly be a simpleton.”

“The fault lies not with the mob, who demands nonsense, but with those who do not know how to produce anything else.”

“Wit and humor do not reside in slow minds.”

“Your grace, come back, Señor Don Quixote, I swear to God you're charging sheep !”

“Ésa es natural condición de mujeres -dijo don Quijote-: desdeñar a quien las quiere y amar a quien las aborrece. Pasa adelante, Sancho.”

“En resolución, él se enfrascó tanto en su lectura, que se le pasaban las noches leyendo de claro en claro, y los días de turbio en turbio, y así, del poco dormir y del mucho leer, se le secó el cerebro, de manera que vino a perder el juicio. Llenósele la fantasía de todo aquello que leía en los libros, así de encantamientos, como de pendencias, batallas, desafíos, heridas, requiebros, amores, tormentas y disparates imposibles, y asentósele de tal modo en la imaginación que era verdad toda aquella máquina de aquellas soñadas invenciones que leía, que para él no había otra historia más cierta en el mundo.”

“Until death it is all life”

“No hay libro tan malo [...] que no tenga algo bueno.”

“...without intelligence, there can be no humour.”

“Limpias, pues, sus armas, hecho del morrión celada, puesto nombre a su rocín y confirmándose a sí mismo, se dio a entender que no le faltaba otra cosa sino buscar una dama de quien enamorarse; porque el caballero andante sin amores era árbol sin hojas y sin fruto y cuerpo sin alma".”

“If all, or almost all, the plays that are popular now, imaginative works as well as historical ones, are known to be nonsense and without rhyme or reason, and despite this the mob hears them with pleasure and thinks of them and approves of them as good, when they are very far from being so, and the authors who compose them and the actors who perform them say they must be like this because that is just how the mob wants them, and no other way; the plays that have a design and follow the story as art demands appeal to a handful of discerning persons who understand them, while everyone else is incapable of comprehending their artistry; and since, as far as the authors and actors are concerned, it is better to earn a living with the crowd than a reputation with the elite, this is what would happen to my book after I had singed my eyebrows trying to keep the precepts I have mentioned and had become the tailor who wasn't paid.”

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

“For me alone Don Quixote was born and I for him. His was the power of action, mine of writing.”

“Confía en el tiempo, que suele dar dulces salidas a muchas amargas dificultades...”

“In any case, Cide Hamete Benengeli was a very careful historian, and very accurate in all things, as can be clearly seen in the details he relates to us, for although they are trivial and inconsequential, he does not attempt to pass over them in silence; his example could be followed by solemn historians who recount actions so briefly and succinctly that we can barely taste them, and leave behind in the inkwell, through carelessness, malice, or ignorance, the most substantive part of the work.”

“It's up to brave hearts, sir, to be patient when things are going badly, as well as being happy when they're going well ... For I've heard that what they call fortune is a flighty woman who drinks too much, and, what's more, she's blind, so she can't see what she's doing, and she doesn't know who she's knocking over or who she's raising up.”

“There were no embraces, because where there is great love there is often little display of it.”

“... he who's down one day can be up the next, unless he really wants to stay in bed, that is...”

“I do not insist," answered Don Quixote, "that this is a full adventure, but it is the beginning of one, for this is the way adventures begin.”

“What man can pretend to know the riddle of a woman's mind?”

“As regards your government of yourself and your household, Sancho, my first piece of advice is to be clean and to cut your fingernails, and not to let them grow long, as some people do, moved by ignorance to believe that long nails make their hand look beautiful, as if those appendages, those excrescences that they leave uncut have any right to be called fingernails at all, because they are more like talons of a kestrel: a monstrous and filthy abuse.”

“-Vístanme -dijo Sancho- como quisieren, que de cualquier manera que vaya vestido seré Sancho Panza.”

“Para mí sola nació don Quijote y yo para él; él supo obrar y yo escribir.”

“The fear thou art in, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "prevents thee from seeing or hearing correctly, for one of the effects of fear is to derange the senses and make things appear different from what they are; if thou art in such fear, withdraw to one side and leave me to myself, for alone I suffice to bring victory to that side to which I shall give my aid;" and so saying he gave Rocinante the spur, and putting the lance in rest, shot down the slope like a thunderbolt.”

“The pen is the language of the soul; as the concepts that in it are generated, such will be its writings.”

“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical may be madness. To surrender dreams, this may be madness ...Maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be.”

“But my thoughts ran a wool-gathering; and I did like the countryman, who looked for his ass while he was mounted on his back.” Don Quixote (pt. II, ch. LVII)”

“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.”

“Sancho, just as you want people to believe what you have seen in the sky, I want you to believe what I saw in the Cave of Montesinos. And that is all I have to say.”

“Señor, las tristezas no se hicieron para las bestias, sino para los hombres; pero si los hombres las sienten demasiado, se vuelven bestias...”

“In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing.”

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

“A Man Without Honoris Worse than Dead.”

“Many go out for wool, and come home shorn themselves.”

“Hunger is the best sauce in the world.”

“Translating from one language to another, unless it is from Greek and Latin, the queens of all languages, is like looking at Flemish tapestries from the wrong side, for although the figures are visible, they are covered by threads that obscure them, and cannot be seen with the smoothness and color of the right side.”

“Whether thus adorned she would have been beautiful or not, and what she must have been in her prosperity, may be imagined from the beauty remaining to her after so many hardships; for, as everyone knows, the beauty of some women has its times and its seasons, and is increased or diminished by chance causes; and naturally the emotions of the mind will heighten or impair it, though indeed more frequently they totally destroy it.”

“The poor man is incapacitated from showing the virtue of generosity to anyone, though he may possess it in the highest degree; and gratitude that consists of disposition only is a dead thing, just as faith without works is dead.”

“All the vices, Sancho, bring some kind of pleasure with them; but envy brings nothing but irritation, bitterness, and rage.”