Quotes from Miguel de Cervantes

You cannot eat your cake and have your cake.

It takes all sorts (to make a world

For if he like a madman lived; At least he like a wise one died.

Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes.

There are but few proverbial sayings that are not true, for they are all drawn from experience itself, which is the mother of all sciences.

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.

Get the better of yourself - this is the best kind of victory.

Great people create great acts of kindness.

Where there's music there can be no evil.

Alas! all music jars when the soul's out of tune.

Patience and shuffle the cards.

I know well enough that there have been dogs so loving that they have thrown themselves into the same grave with the dead bodies of their masters.

The poet may say or sing, not as things were, but as they ought to have been; but the historian must pen them, not as they ought to have been, but as they really were.

Modesty, tis a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world.

"From what I have seen here," remarked Sancho, "justice is so good a thing that even robbers find it necessary."

God who gives the wound gives the salve.

God who sends the wound sends the medicine.

Everyone is as God has made him, and oftentimes a great deal worse.

The little birds have God for their caterer.

He who reforms, God assists.

We are all as God made us and frequently much worse.

Though Gods attributes are equal, yet his mercy is more attractive and pleasing in our eyes than his justice.

Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our deeds.

Laziness never arrived at the attainment of a good wish.