Miguel de Cervantes Quotes

215 Sourced Quotes

Abundance, even of good things, prevents them from being valued

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] turn poet, they say, is an infectious and incurable distemper.

Miguel de Cervantes
From pro's and con's they fell to a warmer way of disputing.

Miguel de Cervantes
I would reply that fiction is all the better the more it looks like truth, and gives the more pleasure the more probability and possibility there is about it.

Miguel de Cervantes
I follow a more easy, and, in my opinion, a wiser course, namely--to inveigh against the levity of the female sex, their fickleness, their double-dealing, their rotten promises, their broken faith, and, finally, their want of judgment in bestowing their affections.

Miguel de Cervantes
Urgent necessity prompts many to do things, at the very thoughts of which they perhaps would start at other times.

Miguel de Cervantes
After meat comes mustard; or, like money to a starving man at sea, when there are no victuals to be bought with it.

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; it is meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot. It is 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.

Miguel de Cervantes
For the army is a school in which the miser becomes generous, and the generous prodigal; miserly soldiers are like monsters, but very rarely seen.

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

Miguel de Cervantes
Do but take care to express yourself in a plain, easy Manner, in well-chosen, significant and decent Terms, and to give a harmonious and pleasing Turn to your Periods: study to explain your Thoughts, and set them in the truest Light, labouring as much as possible, not to leave them dark nor intricate, but clear and intelligible.

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

Miguel de Cervantes
I would do what I pleased, and doing what I pleased, I should have my will, and having my will, I should be contented; and when one is contented, there is no more to be desired; and when there is no more to be desired, there is an end of it.

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