Quotes from Cervantes

You must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff.

Every one is as God made him and oftentimes a good deal worse.

Every man is the son of his own works.

He who sings scares away his woes.

Hunger is the best sauce in the world.

All kinds of beauty do not inspire love: there is a kind of it which pleases only the sight, but does not captivate the affections.

Beauty in a modest woman is like fire at a distance, or like a sharp sword: neither doth the one burn nor the other wound him that comes not too near them.

No fathers and mothers think their own children ugly, and this self-deceit is yet stronger with respect to the offspring of the mind.

Poesy is a beauteous damsel, chaste, honourable, discreet, witty, retired, and who keeps herself within the limits of propriety. She is a friend of solitude; fountains entertain her, meadows console her, woods free her from ennui, flowers delight her; in short, she gives pleasure and instruction to all with whom she communicates.

Short sentences drawn from long experiences.

The beauty of some women has days and seasons, depending upon accidents which diminish or increase it; nay, the very passions of the mind naturally improve or impair it, and very often utterly destroy it.

The woman who is resolved to be respected can make herself be so even amidst an army of soldiers.

There is no remembrance which time doth not obliterate, nor pain which death doth not put an end to.

Hat which cost little is less valued.

Valour lies just halfway between rashness and cowardice.

The guts carry the feet not the feet the guts.