Miguel de Cervantes Quotes

Pray, look better, sir... those things yonder are no giants, but windmills.

Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.

In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.

In every case, the remedy is to take action. Get clear about exactly what it is that you need to learn and exactly what you need to do to learn it. BEING CLEAR KILLS FEAR. Make it thy business to know thyself, which is the most difficult lesson in the world.

He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all.

How will he who does not know how to govern himself know how to govern others?

Three things too much, and three too little are pernicious to man; to speak much, and know little; to spend much, and have little; to presume much, and be worth little.

That one man scorned and covered with scars Still strove with his last ounce of courage To reach the unreachable star.

Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.

The wicked are always ungrateful.

Her father guarded her, and she guarded herself; for there are no padlocks, bolts, or bars, that secure a maiden better than her own reserve.

Spare your breath to cool your porridge.

Great persons are able to do great kindnesses.

Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory.

Truth will rise above falsehood as oil above water.

Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.

Get the better of yourself - this is the best kind of victory.

I must speak the truth, and nothing but the truth.

Love and war are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the one as in the other.

'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 that fort yield at night which it besieged but in the morning; for there is no force able to resist it.

I never thrust my nose into other men's porridge. It is no bread and butter of mine; every man for himself, and God for us all.

There is remedy for all things except death - Don Quixote De La Mancha

When God sends the dawn, he sends it for all.

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

A stout heart breaks bad luck.

'Tis the maddest trick a man can ever play in his whole life, to let his breath sneak out of his body without any more ado, and without so much as a rap o'er the pate, or a kick of the guts; to go out like the snuff of a farthing candle, and die merely of the mulligrubs, or the sullens.

Give the devil his due.

The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise.

Make yourself honey and the flies will devour you.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

The pen is the tongue of the mind.

I do not insist," answered Don Quixote, "that this is a full adventure, but it is the beginning of one, for this is the way adventures begin.

Tell me what company thou keepest and I'll tell thee what thou art.

Let us make hay while the sun shines.

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

The proof is in the pudding.

Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes.

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

The proof of the pudding is the eating.

Wit and humor belong to genius alone.

He who sings frightens away his ills.

Love not what you are but only what you may become.

What man can pretend to know the riddle of a woman's mind?

Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.

The virtuous woman must be treated like a relic - adored, but not handled; she should be guarded and prized, like a fine flower-garden, the beauty and fragrance of which the owner allows others to enjoy only at a distance, and through iron walls.

They who lose today may win tomorrow.

It is not the responsibility of knights errant to discover whether the afflicted, the enchained and the oppressed whom they encounter on the road are reduced to these circumstances and suffer this distress for their vices, or for their virtues: the knight's sole responsibility is to succour them as people in need, having eyes only for their sufferings, not for their misdeeds.

It is the part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not to venture all his eggs in one basket.

I know who I am and who I may be, if I choose.

Delay always breeds danger.