Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote (1605)

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The ease of my burdens, the staff of my life.

Miguel de Cervantes
Tis a dainty thing to command, though 'twere but a flock of sheep.

Miguel de Cervantes
Make it thy business to know thyself, which is the most difficult lesson in the world.

Miguel de Cervantes
It will grieve me so to the heart, that I shall cry my eyes out.

Miguel de Cervantes
Are we to mark this day with a white or a black stone?

Miguel de Cervantes
Great persons are able to do great kindnesses.

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
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 part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not venture all his eggs in one basket. And though I am but a clown, or a bumpkin, as you may say, yet I would have you to know I know what is what, and have always taken care of the main chance...

Miguel de Cervantes
Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.

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

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
I had rather munch a crust of brown bread and an onion in a corner, without any more ado, or ceremony, than feed upon turkey at another man's table.

Miguel de Cervantes
Well, now, there's a remedy for everything except death.

Miguel de Cervantes
There is a time for some things, and a time for all things; a time for great things, and a time for small things.

Miguel de Cervantes
Of good natural parts, and of a liberal education.

Miguel de Cervantes
She may guess what I should perform in the wet, if I do so much in the dry.

Miguel de Cervantes
The reputation of a woman may also be compared to a mirror of crystal, shining and bright, but liable to be sullied by every breath that comes near it.

Miguel de Cervantes
Can we ever have too much of a good thing?

Miguel de Cervantes
Fly not, cowards and vile beings, for a single knight attacks you.

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

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

Miguel de Cervantes
The cleverest character in comedy is the clown, for he who would make people take him for a fool, must not be one.

Miguel de Cervantes
It is one thing to write as poet and another to write as a historian: the poet can recount or sing about things not as they were, but as they should have been, and the historian must write about them not as they should have been, but as they were, without adding or subtracting anything from the truth.

Miguel de Cervantes
There is no remembrance which time does not obliterate, nor pain which death does not terminate.

Miguel de Cervantes
He has an oar in every man's boat, and a finger in every pie.

Miguel de Cervantes