Top 447 Quotes & Sayings by Miguel de Cervantes

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes.
Last updated on December 24, 2024.
Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best known for his novel Don Quixote, a work often cited as both the first modern novel and one of the pinnacles of world literature.

Tell me thy company, and I'll tell thee what thou art.
When thou art at Rome, do as they do at Rome.
A closed mouth catches no flies. — © Miguel de Cervantes
A closed mouth catches no flies.
Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.
No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly.
In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.
The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part.
Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory.
Drink moderately, for drunkeness neither keeps a secret, nor observes a promise.
There is no greater folly in the world than for a man to despair.
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.
Those who'll play with cats must expect to be scratched.
Truth indeed rather alleviates than hurts, and will always bear up against falsehood, as oil does above water. — © Miguel de Cervantes
Truth indeed rather alleviates than hurts, and will always bear up against falsehood, as oil does above water.
There is nothing so subject to the inconstancy of fortune as war.
No padlocks, bolts, or bars can secure a maiden better than her own reserve.
The bow cannot always stand bent, nor can human frailty subsist without some lawful recreation.
God bears with the wicked, but not forever.
When the severity of the law is to be softened, let pity, not bribes, be the motive.
Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes.
Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.
A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.
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.
The eyes those silent tongues of love.
Our hours in love have wings; in absence, crutches.
One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world will be better for this.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.
Man appoints, and God disappoints.
The knowledge of yourself will preserve you from vanity.
Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our deeds.
Every man is the son of his own works.
Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as does oil above water.
To withdraw is not to run away, and to stay is no wise action, when there's more reason to fear than to hope.
Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.
Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.
Valor lies just halfway between rashness and cowardice.
Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.
Virtue is the truest nobility. — © Miguel de Cervantes
Virtue is the truest nobility.
It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.
Fair and softly goes far.
I have always heard, Sancho, that doing good to base fellows is like throwing water into the sea.
Liberty, as well as honor, man ought to preserve at the hazard of his life, for without it life is insupportable.
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.
He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all.
Truth will rise above falsehood as oil above water.
Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes.
Thou hast seen nothing yet.
There are only two families in the world, my old grandmother used to say, the Haves and the Have-nots. — © Miguel de Cervantes
There are only two families in the world, my old grandmother used to say, the Haves and the Have-nots.
'Tis ill talking of halters in the house of a man that was hanged.
The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.
A private sin is not so prejudicial in this world, as a public indecency.
He preaches well that lives well.
That's the nature of women, not to love when we love them, and to love when we love them not.
Alas! all music jars when the soul's out of tune.
Laziness never arrived at the attainment of a good wish.
To be prepared is half the victory.
Love and war are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the one as in the other.
I do not say a proverb is amiss when aptly and reasonably applied, but to be forever discharging them, right or wrong, hit or miss, renders conversation insipid and vulgar.
Fear has many eyes and can see things underground.
A person dishonored is worst than dead.
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