“Those who’ll play with cats must expect to be scratched.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as does oil above water.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“The knowledge of yourself will preserve you from vanity.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“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.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“A closed mouth catches no flies.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Fair and softly goes far.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Tell me thy company, and I’ll tell thee what thou art.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Thou hast seen nothing yet.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“To withdraw is not to run away, and to stay is no wise action, when there’s more reason to fear than to hope.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“No padlocks, bolts, or bars can secure a maiden better than her own reserve.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“The eyes those silent tongues of love.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Liberty, as well as honor, man ought to preserve at the hazard of his life, for without it life is insupportable.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Alas! all music jars when the soul’s out of tune.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“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.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“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.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture of sorrow.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Fear has many eyes and can see things underground.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Valor lies just halfway between rashness and cowardice.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“When thou art at Rome, do as they do at Rome.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“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.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Our hours in love have wings; in absence, crutches.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“The bow cannot always stand bent, nor can human frailty subsist without some lawful recreation.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“To be prepared is half the victory.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Truth will rise above falsehood as oil above water.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“That which costs little is less valued.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Tis a dainty thing to command, though twere but a flock of sheep.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“A person dishonored is worst than dead.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“From reading too much, and sleeping too little, his brain dried up on him and he lost his judgment.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“There are only two families in the world, my old grandmother used to say, the Haves and the Have-nots.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“He had a face like a blessing.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Laziness never arrived at the attainment of a good wish.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“He preaches well that lives well.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“I have always heard, Sancho, that doing good to base fellows is like throwing water into the sea.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Man appoints, and God disappoints.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Pray look better, Sir… those things yonder are no giants, but windmills.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Virtue is the truest nobility.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our deeds.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“True valor lies between cowardice and rashness.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“A private sin is not so prejudicial in this world, as a public indecency.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Modesty, tis a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Truth indeed rather alleviates than hurts, and will always bear up against falsehood, as oil does above water.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“That’s the nature of women, not to love when we love them, and to love when we love them not.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Drink moderately, for drunkeness neither keeps a secret, nor observes a promise.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“There’s no taking trout with dry breeches.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“There is no greater folly in the world than for a man to despair.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Jests that give pains are no jests.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“When the severity of the law is to be softened, let pity, not bribes, be the motive.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“I believe there’s no proverb but what is true; they are all so many sentences and maxims drawn from experience, the universal mother of sciences.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“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.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“’Tis ill talking of halters in the house of a man that was hanged.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Every man is the son of his own works.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“God bears with the wicked, but not forever.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“There is nothing so subject to the inconstancy of fortune as war.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Love and war are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the one as in the other.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“Well, there’s a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us flat one time or other.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
“One of the most considerable advantages the great have over their inferiors is to have servants as good as themselves.”
― Miguel de Cervantes
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