Miguel de Cervantes Quotes (121 Quotes)

Be a terror to the butchers, that they may be fair in their weight; and keep hucksters and fraudulent dealers in awe, for the same reason.

Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.

I believe there's no proverb but what is true; they are all so many sentences and maxims drawn from experience, the universal mother of sciences.

There is a strange charm in the thoughts of a good legacy, or the hopes of an estate, which wondrously removes or at least alleviates the sorrow that men would otherwise feel for the death of friends.

There is also this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it.

Though God's attributes are equal, yet his mercy is more attractive and pleasing in our eyes than his justice.

Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.

Faint heart ne'er won fair lady.

To be prepared is half the victory.

True valor lies between cowardice and rashness.

The Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance.

'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.

When thou art at Rome, do as they do at Rome.

Virtue is the truest nobility.

There are only two families in the world, my old grandmother used to say, the Haves and the Have-nots.

Modesty, tis a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world.

Those who'll play with cats must expect to be scratched.

No padlocks, bolts, or bars can secure a maiden better than her own reserve.

A blot in thy escutcheon to all futurity.

Jests that give pains are no jests.

One shouldn't talk of halters in the hanged man's house.

A closed mouth catches no flies.

Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as does oil above water.

The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.

Mere flimflam stories, and nothing but shams and lies.

The bow cannot always stand bent, nor can human frailty subsist without some lawful recreation.

Thou hast seen nothing yet.

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

Truth indeed rather alleviates than hurts, and will always bear up against falsehood, as oil does above water.

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

Our hours in love have wings; in absence, crutches.

Laziness never arrived at the attainment of a good wish.

Well, there's a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us flat one time or other.

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

Liberty, as well as honor, man ought to preserve at the hazard of his life, for without it life is insupportable.

No man is more than another unless he does more than another.

It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.

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

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

Every man is the son of his own works.

He had a face like a blessing.

Thou camest out of thy mother's belly without government, thou hast liv'd hitherto without government, and thou mayst be carried to thy long home without government, when it shall please the Lord. How many people in this world live without government, yet do well enough, and are well look'd upon

No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly.

From reading too much, and sleeping too little, his brain dried up on him and he lost his judgment.

Liberty is one of the most precious gifts which heaven has bestowed on man with it we cannot compare the treasures which the earth contains or the sea conceals for liberty, as for honor, we can and ought to risk our lives and, on for the other hand, captivity is the greatest evil that can befall man.

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

For a man to attain to an eminent degree in learning costs him time, watching, hunger, nakedness, dizziness in the head, weakness in the stomach, and other inconveniences.

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

Tis a dainty thing to command, though twere but a flock of sheep.

Miracle me no miracles.