Quotes from Miguel de Cervantes

I have always heard, Sancho, that doing good to base fellows is like throwing water into the sea.

Truth indeed rather alleviates than hurts, and will always bear up against falsehood, as oil does above water.

When the severity of the law is to be softened, let pity, not bribes, be the motive.

Jealousy sees things always with magnifying glasses which make little things large, of dwarfs giants, of suspicions truths.

Great persons are able to do great kindnesses.

Make it thy business to know thyself, which is the most difficult lesson in the world

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

A knowledge of thyself will preserve thee from vanity.

He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all.

He preaches well that lives well.

When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?

Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.

It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture of sorrow.

Tis a dainty thing to command, though 'twere but a flock of sheep.

There are only two families in the world as a Grandmother of mine used to say the haves and the have-nots.

It is good to live and learn.

My honor is dearer to me than my life.

Maybe the greatest madness is to see life as it is rather than what it could be.

With life many things are remedied.

Drink moderately, for drunkeness neither keeps a secret, nor observes a promise.

Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

Among the attributes of God, although they are equal, mercy shines with even more brilliance than justice.

Until death it is all life.