Miguel de Cervantes Quotes

Scholarship without virtue is like pearls pearls

I can tell where my own shoe pinches me; and you must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff.

Señor, las tristezas no se hicieron para las bestias, sino para los hombres; pero si los hombres las sienten demasiado, se vuelven bestias...

As they use to say, spick and span new.

Mind, Sancho, I do not say that a proverb aptly brought in is objectionable; but to pile up and string together proverbs at random makes conversation dull and vulgar.

Çünkü diyordu ki ailelerin, çocuklarının hayatlarını onların rızalarına karşı gelerek belirlememeleri gerekir;

can’t help it, I must follow him – we’re from the same village, I’ve eaten his bread, I’m very fond of him, he’s grateful to me, he gave me his donkeys and above all I’m a faithful fellow, so nothing’s ever going to part us except the pick and the shovel. And if Your High and Mightiness doesn’t want me to be given the island I’ve been promised, God made me without it, and perhaps not getting it would be for the good of my conscience –

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.

Thou knowest that my voice is sweet, That is if thou dost hear; And I am moulded in a form Somewhat below the mean.

— Si fueras caballero, como no lo eres, ya yo hubiera castigado tu sandez y atrevimiento, cautiva criatura.

I am the giant Caraculiambro, lord of the island of Malindrania, vanquished in single combat by the never sufficiently extolled knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, who has commanded me to present myself before your Grace, that your Highness dispose of me at your pleasure’?

I will take my corporal oath on it.

todavía es consuelo en las desgracias hallar quien se duela dellas.

"Cada uno es tal como Dios le hizo, y aún peor muchas veces".

Love and war are exactly alike. It is lawful to use tricks and slights to obtain a desired end.