Miguel de Cervantes Quotes

I shall be as secret as the grave.

Vai-te, vai-te, e te distrai entre as criadas de tua mãe, e ali cuida de teus cabelos e de tuas mãos, mais preparadas para enrolar os macios fios de seda que a empunhar a dura espada.

Amigos, cualesquiera que seáis, que en esa prisión quedáis encerrados, perdonadme; que, por mi desgracia y por la vuestra, yo no os puedo sacar de vuestra cuita. Para otro caballero debe de estar guardada y reservada esta aventura.

-Mira, Sancho, por el mesmo que denantes juraste te juro - dijo don Quijote - que tienes el más corto entendimiento que tiene ni tuvo escudero en el mundo. ¿Que es posible que en cuanto ha que andas conmigo no has echado de ver que todas las cosas de los caballeros andantes parecen quimeras, necedades y desatinos, y que son todas hechas al revés? Y no porque sea ello ansí, sino porque andan entre nosotros siempre una caterva de encantadores, que todas nuestras cosas mudan y truecan, y les vuelven según su gusto, y según tienen la gana de favorecernos o destruirnos; y así, eso que a ti te parece bacía de barbero, me parece a mí el yelmo de Mambrino, y a otro le parecerá otra cosa.

Men who are famous for their talent, great poets, eminent historians, are always, or almost always, envied by those whose particular pleasure and entertainment is judging other people’s writings without ever having brought anything of their own into the light of day.

Remember everything and do not miss a detail of how she receives you: if her color changes as you give her my message; if she becomes agitated or troubled when she hears my name; if she moves about on her pillows, if you happen to find her in the richly furnished antechamber of her rank; if she is standing, look at her to see if she shifts from one foot to another; if she repeats her answer two or three times; if she changes from gentle to severe, from harsh to loving; if she raises her hand to her hair to smooth it, although it is not disarranged; finally, my friend, observe all her actions and movements, because if you relate them to me just as they occurred, I shall interpret what she keeps hidden in the secret places of her heart in response to the fact of my love; for you must know, Sancho, if you do not know it already, that with lovers, the external actions and movements, revealed only when the topic of their love arises, are reliable messengers bringing the news of what transpires deep within their souls.

¡Oh fuerza de la adulación, a cuánto te estiendes, y cuán dilatados límites son los de tu juridición agradable!

He who sings scares away his woes.

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.

Let each look to himself and not try to make out white black, and black white; for each of us is as God made him, aye, and often worse.

mis amores y los suyos han sido siempre platónicos, sin extenderse a más que a un honesto mirar.

It is a true saying that a man must eat a peck of salt with his friend before he knows him.

Fantasy filled his mind from everything that he read in the books - enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, flirtations, love affairs, misfortunes and impossible nonsense. As a result, he came to believe that all those fictitious adventures he was reading about were true, and for him there was no history more authentic in the world.

Ill luck, you know, seldom comes alone.

Llenósele la fantasía de todo aquello que leía en los libros, así de encantamientos como de pendencias, batallas, desafíos, heridas, requiebros, amores, tormentas y disparates imposibles; y asentósele de tal modo en la imaginación que era verdad toda aquella máquina de aquellas soñadas invenciones que leía, que para él no había otra historia más cierta en el mundo