Miguel de Cervantes Quotes

a Dios, Sancho — dijo don Quijote — , que todo se hará bien, y quizá mejor de lo pensado. Que no se mueve la hoja en el árbol sin la voluntad de Dios.

"Y manos a la obra, que en la tardanza dicen que suele estar el peligro".

No hay memoria a quien el tiempo no acabe, ni dolor que muerte no le consuma.

Now, tell me which is the greater deed, raising a dead man or killing a giant?” “The answer is self-evident,” responded Don Quixote. “It is greater to raise a dead man.

That night the housekeeper burned all the books there were in the stable yard and in all the house; and there must have been some that went up in smoke which should have been preserved in everlasting archives, if the one who did the scrutinizing had not been so indolent. Thus we see the truth of the old saying, to the effect that the innocent must sometimes pay for the sins of the guilty.

Acontece tener un padre un hijo feo y sin gracia alguna, y el amor que le tiene le pone una venda en los ojos para que no vea sus faltas, antes las juzga por discreciones y lindezas y las cuenta a sus amigos por agudezas y donaires.

...the sadness of the heart rises to the face, and in the eyes may be read the history of that which passes in the soul.

And yet the power of thought has always been so far beyond us that the main difference between men and animals is: they can think and we can’t.

...your grace's words have been like manure spread on the barren ground of my dry and uncultivated mind.

So he went on stringing together these and other absurdities, all in the style of those his books had taught him, imitating their language as well as he could; and all the while he rode so slowly and the sun mounted so rapidly and with such fervour that it was enough to melt his brains if he had any.

"Una golondrina no hace verano" de Don Quijote de la Mancha

Liberty…is one of the most valuable blessings that Heaven has bestowed upon mankind.

Great hearts, my dear master, should be patient in misfortune as well as joyful in prosperity. And this I judge from myself. For if I was merry when I was Governor now that I’m a squire on foot I’m not sad, for I’ve heard tell that Fortune, as they call her, is a drunken and capricious woman and, worse still, blind; and so she doesn’t see what she’s doing, and doesn’t know whom she is casting down or raising up.

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.

In short, to sum up all in a few words, or in a single one, I may tell you I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called 'The Knight of the Rueful Countenance;' for though self-praise is degrading, I must perforce sound my own sometimes, that is to say, when there is no one at hand to do it for me.