Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote (1605)

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

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
Which I have earned with the sweat of my brows.

Miguel de Cervantes
I find my familiarity with thee has bred contempt.

Miguel de Cervantes
An honest man's word is as good as his bond.

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

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

Miguel de Cervantes
Take care, your worship, those things over there are not giants but windmills.

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

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

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

Miguel de Cervantes
Time ripens all things. No man is born wise. Bishops are made of men and not of stones.

Miguel de Cervantes
They had best not stir the rice, though it sticks to the pot.

Miguel de Cervantes
He has done like Orbaneja, the painter of Ubeda, who, being asked what he painted, answered, "As it may hit;" and when he had scrawled out a misshapen cock, was forced to write underneath, in Gothic letters, "This is a cock."

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

Miguel de Cervantes
Every man was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

Miguel de Cervantes
I was ever charitable and good to the poor, and scorn to take the bread out of another man's mouth. On the other side, by our Lady, they shall play me no foul play. I am an old cur at a crust, and can sleep dog-sleep when I list. I can look sharp as well as another, and let me alone to keep the cobwebs out of my eyes. I know where the shoe wrings me. I will know who and who is together. Honesty is the best policy, I will stick to that. The good shall have my hand and heart, but the bad neither foot nor fellowship. And in my mind, the main point of governing, is to make a good beginning.

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

Miguel de Cervantes