Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote (1605)

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Riches are of little avail in many of the calamities to which mankind are liable.

Miguel de Cervantes
Blessed be those happy ages that were strangers to the dreadful fury of these devilish instruments of artillery, whose inventor I am satisfied is now in Hell, receiving the reward of his cursed invention, which is the cause that very often a cowardly base hand takes away the life of the bravest gentleman.

Miguel de Cervantes
Happy the man to whom heaven has given a morsel of bread without laying him under the obligation of thanking any other for it than heaven itself.

Miguel de Cervantes
Don Quixote followed nature, and being satisfied with his first sleep, did not solicit more. As for Sancho, he never wanted a second, for the first lasted him from night to morning, indicating a sound body and a mind free from care; but his master, being unable to sleep himself awakened him, saying, "I am amazed, Sancho, at the torpor of thy soul; it seems as if thou wert made of marble or brass, insensible of emotion or sentiment!...

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
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
Tis an old saying, the Devil lurks behind the cross. All is not gold that glitters. From the tail of the plough, Bamba was made King of Spain; and from his silks and riches was Rodrigo cast to be devoured by the snakes.

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
The poet may say or sing, not as things were, but as they ought to have been; but the historian must pen them, not as they ought to have been, but as they really were.

Miguel de Cervantes
In short, virtue cannot live where envy reigns, nor liberality subsist with niggardliness.

Miguel de Cervantes