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.

Si os la mostrara — replicó don Quijote — , ¿qué hiciérades vosotros en confesar una verdad tan notoria? La importancia está en que sin verla lo habéis de creer, confesar, afirmar, jurar y defender; donde no, conmigo sois en batalla, gente descomunal y soberbia.

Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and the goal of a good intention was never reached through its opposite, laziness.

In any case, Cide Hamete Benengeli was a very careful historian, and very accurate in all things, as can be clearly seen in the details he relates to us, for although they are trivial and inconsequential, he does not attempt to pass over them in silence; his example could be followed by solemn historians who recount actions so briefly and succinctly that we can barely taste them, and leave behind in the inkwell, through carelessness, malice, or ignorance, the most substantive part of the work.

Pero a partir de hoy mi vida, toda mi vida, independientemente de lo que pueda pasar, no será ya irrazonable, no carecerá de sentido como hasta ahora, sino que en todos y en cada uno de sus momentos poseerá el sentido indudable del bien, que yo soy dueño de infundir en ella.»

cuente vuesa merced su historia como debe, que ya sabe que toda comparación es odiosa, y, así, no hay para qué comparar a nadie con nadie.

(...) porque la mayor locura que puede hacer un hombre en esta vida es dejarse morir sin más ni más, sin que nadie le mate ni otras manos le acaben que las de la melancolía.

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.

Poetry, gentle sir, is, as I take it, like a tender young maiden of supreme beauty, to array, bedeck, and adorn whom is the task of several other maidens,

No hay locura más grande que ver la vida como es y no como debería ser

Until death, it is all life.

Every man is the child of his own deeds

for it is the business and duty of historians to be exact, truthful, and wholly free from passion, and neither interest nor fear, hatred nor love, should make them swerve from the path of truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, storehouse of deeds, witness for the past, example and counsel for the present, and warning for the future.

Capítulo LXVI. Que trata de lo que verá el que lo leyere, o lo oirá el que lo escuchare leer

-Sí, ya lo sé, Mercedes -respondió Fernando-; hasta el horrible atractivo de la franqueza tienes conmigo. Pero ¿olvidas que es ley sagrada entre los nuestros el casarse catalanes con catalanes?