Miguel de Cervantes Quotes

215 Sourced Quotes

You cannot eat your cake and have your cake; 48 and store 's no sore.

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

Miguel de Cervantes
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.

Miguel de Cervantes
Sancho Panza by name, is my own self, if I was not changed in my cradle.

Miguel de Cervantes
Since Don Quixote de la Mancha is a crazy fool and a madman, and since Sancho Panza, his squire, knows it, yet, for all that, serves and follows him, and hangs on these empty promises of his, there can be no doubt that he is more of a madman and a fool than his master.

Miguel de Cervantes
There are two kinds of beauty, one being of the soul and the other of the body, That of the soul is revealed through intelligence, modesty, right conduct, Generosity and good breeding, all of which qualities may exist in an ugly man; And when one's gaze is fixed upon beauty of this sort and not upon that of the body, Love is usually born suddenly and violently.

Miguel de Cervantes
It is past all controversy that what costs dearest is, and ought to be, most valued.

Miguel de Cervantes
He preaches well that lives well, quoth Sancho; that's all the divinity I understand.

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
Of good natural parts, and of a liberal education.

Miguel de Cervantes
The virtuous woman must be treated like a relic — adored, but not handled; she should be guarded and prized, like a fine flower-garden, the beauty and fragrance of which the owner allows others to enjoy only at a distance, and through iron walls.

Miguel de Cervantes
Liberty, as well as honor, man ought to preserve at the hazard of his life, for without it life is insupportable

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

Miguel de Cervantes
There were but two families in the world, Have-much and Have-little.

Miguel de Cervantes
They can expect nothing but their labor for their pains.

Miguel de Cervantes
It is impossible for good or evil to last forever; and hence it follows that the evil having lasted so long, the good must be now nigh at hand.

Miguel de Cervantes
Experience, the universal Mother of Sciences.

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

Miguel de Cervantes
Blessings on him who invented sleep, the mantle that covers all human thoughts, the food that satisfies hunger, the drink that slakes thirst, the fire that warms cold, the cold that moderates heat, and, lastly, the common currency that buys all things, the balance and weight that equalizes the shepherd and the king, the simpleton and the sage.

Miguel de Cervantes
"Sit there, clod-pate!" cried he; "for let me sit wherever I will, that will still be the upper end, and the place of worship to thee."

Miguel de Cervantes
For neither good nor evil can last for ever; and so it follows that as evil has lasted a long time, good must now be close at hand.

Miguel de Cervantes
Fear is sharp-sighted, and can see things underground, and much more in the skies.

Miguel de Cervantes
I can tell where my own shoe pinches me; and you must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff.

Miguel de Cervantes
The ass will carry his load, but not a double load; ride not a free horse to death.

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

Miguel de Cervantes