Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra – 22 April 1616), was a Spanish writer who is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists... (wikipedia)
My grandma (rest her soul) used to say, ''there were but two families in the world, have-much and have-little.''
One man is no more than another if he does no more than another
Poetry, good sir, in my opinion, is like a tender virgin, very young, and extremely beautiful, whom divers others virgins - namely, all the other sciences - make it their business to enrich, polish and adorn; and to her it belongs to make use of them
Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.
Love not what you are, but what you may become.
Love in young men for the most part is not love but sexual desire, and its accomplishment is the end
There are only two families in the world, as a grandmother of mine used to say: the haves and the have-nots.
I hate to keep things long in case they go mouldy from over-keeping.
I can look sharp as well as another, and let me alone keep the cobwebs out of my eyes.
Fortune sometimes turns round like a mill wheel and he who was yesterday at the top lies today at the bottom
God bless the inventor of sleep, the cloak that covers all men's thoughts, the food that cures all hunger . . . the balancing weight that levels the shepherd with the king and the simple with the wise.
If that should not be, cousin, I say: patience and shuffle the cards.
He has an oar in every man's boat and a finger in every pie
History is a sacred kind of writing, because truth is essential to it, and where truth is, there God himself is, so far as truth is concerned
Hold you there, neither a strange hand nor my own, neither heavy nor light shall touch my bum.
Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our own deeds
There is no book so bad, said the bachelor, but something good may be found in it.
He got the better of himself, and that's the best kind of victory one can wish for
It is bad judgment to speak of halters in the house of a man who was hanged
It is not the hand, but the understanding of a man, that may be said to write
Tis the part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not venture all his eggs in one basket.
That's the nature of women not to love when we love them, and to love when we love them not.
Who doesn't know how to enjoy luck when it comes, should not complain when it passes him by
Without a governorship you came out of your mother's womb, without a governorship you've lived to this day, and without a governorship you'll go - or they'll take you - to the grave.
Time ripens all thing. No man is born wise.
Tis said of love that it sometimes goes, sometimes flies; runs with one, walks gravely with another; turns a third into ice, and sets a fourth in a flame: it wounds one, another it kills: like lightning it begins and ends in the same moment: it makes
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. By a small sample we may judge of the whole piece.
Thou art a cat, and rat, and a coward to boot.
True valor lies half way between cowardice and rashness.
Drink moderately, for drunkenness neither keeps a secret, nor observes a promise
El ver mucho y leer mucho aviva los ingenios de los hombres.
Blessings on him who invented sleep, the mantle that covers all human thoughts.
Didn't I tell you, Don Quixote, sir, to turn back, for they were not armies you were going to attack, but flocks of sheep?
But my thoughts ran woolgathering; and I did like the countryman, who looked for his ass while he was mounted on his back.
A woman's advice has little value, but he who won't take it is a fool
A man must eat a peck of salt with his friend, before he knows him.
Tell me what company you keep and I'll tell you what you are.
Fear is sharp-sighted and can see things under ground and much more in the skies.
In me the need to talk is a primary impulse, and I can't help saying right off what comes to my tongue.
I know who I am, and I know too that I am capable of being not only the characters I have named, but all the Twelve Peers of France, and all the Nine Worthies as well.
Oh, sir, sir, there are more tricks done in the village than make a noise - saving her ladyship's presence.
Take away the cause, and the effect ceases; what the eye ne'er sees, the heart ne'er rues
Take care, your worship, those things over there are not giants but windmills.
Never stand begging for what you have the power to earn.
Good painters imitate nature, bad ones spew it up.
It is the part of a wise man to keep himself to-day for to-morrow, and not to venture all his eggs in one basket.
And the first thing I would do in my government, I would have nobody to control me, I would be absolute; and who but I: now, he that is absolute, can do what he likes; he that can do what he likes, can take his pleasure; he that can take his pleasure
All music jars when the soul is out of tune
All kinds of beauty do not inspire love; there is a kind that only pleases the sight but does not captivate the affections.
As much is lost by a card too many as a card too few
Every one is as God made him, and often a great deal worse.
Every one is the son of his own works.
When a man says ""Get out of my house! what would you have with my wife?"" there's no answer to be made
The most artful part in a play,may is the fool's
He preaches well that lives well, quoth Sancho; that's all the divinity I understand
Among the attributes of God, although they are all equal, mercy shines with even more brilliancy than justice
All the physicians and authors in the world could not give a clear account of his madness. He is mad in patches, full of lucid intervals.
All sorrows are good (or are less) with bread.
