Top 500 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Quotes (2025 Update)
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451. “Good Christians should never avenge injuries.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

452. “Riches are of little avail in many of the calamities to which mankind are liable.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

453. “To think that the affairs of this life always remain in the same state is a vain presumption; indeed they all seem to be perpetually changing and moving in a circular course. Spring is followed by summer, summer by autumn, and autumn by winter, which is again followed by spring, and so time continues its everlasting round. But the life of man is ever racing to its end, swifter than time itself, without hope of renewal, unless in the next that is limitless and infinite.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

454. “He then directed one of the ladies to gird on Don Quixote’s sword, which she did with much gravity and composure; for it was all they could do to keep from laughing at every point of the ceremony, but the thought of the knight’s prowess which they had already witnessed was sufficient to restrain their mirth.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

455. “After the gratifications of brutish appetites are past, the greatest pleasure then is to get rid of that which entertained it.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

456. “No se abrazaron unos a otros, porque donde hay mucho amor no suele haber demasiada desenvoltura.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

457. “Sancho, when a man knows not how to read, or is left-handed, it argues one of two things; either that he was the son of exceedingly mean and lowly parents, or that he himself was so incorrigible and ill-conditioned that neither good company nor good teaching could make any impression on him.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

458. “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 Saavedra

459. “This is a fault incident to all those who presume to translate books of verse into another language. For, however much care they take and however much ability they employ, they can never equal the quality of the original.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

460. “Many people go looking for wool and come back shorn.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

461. “Every man is the child of his own deeds.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

462. “Siempre deja la ventura una puerta abierta en las desdichas, para dar remedio a ellas.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

463. “When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams – this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness – and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

464. “There are two kinds of beauty: one of the soul and the other of the body. That of the soul displays its radiance in intelligence, in chastity, in good conduct, in generosity, and in good breeding, and all these qualities may exist in an ugly man.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

465. “La honra y las virtudes son adornos del alma, sin las cuales el cuerpo, aunque lo sea, no debe de parecer hermoso.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

466. “La libertad no se vende n por todo el oro del mundo.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

467. “Enfrena la lengua, considera y rumia las palabras antes que te salgan de la boca, y advierte que hemos llegado a parte donde, con el favor de Dios y valor de mi brazo, hemos de salir mejorados en tercio y quinto en fama y en hacienda.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

468. “Oh my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, perfection of all beauty, summit and crown of discretion, treasure house of grace, depositary of virtue, and finally, ideal of all that is good, honourable, and delectable in this world! What is thy grace doing now?”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

469. “Advierte que es desati-, siendo de vidrio el teja-, tomar piedras en las ma- para tirar al veci-.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

470. “Doing good to the lowborn is throwing water into the sea.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

471. “Now I forgive you,” said Don Quixote, “and you must pardon the anger I have shown you; for first impulses are not in the hands of men.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

472. “In death, life I wish to see, in disease, health I seek, in prison, I want liberty, I desire escape from a keep, and, from a traitor, loyalty. But malign Fate does bind, to deny me the good, with Heaven combined, because the impossible I would, the possible will I never find.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

473. “Honour and virtue are ornaments of the soul, and without them the body, even if it is beautiful, shouldn’t seem beautiful.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

474. “En fin, bien dicen que es menester mucho tiempo para venir a conocer las personas, y que no hay cosa segura en esta vida.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

475. “Nunca fuera caballero De damas tan bien servido.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

476. “Rocinante, a name, to his thinking, lofty, sonorous, and significant of his condition as a hack before he became what he now was, the first and foremost of all the hacks in the world.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

477. “The women, unaccustomed to hearing such high-flown rhetoric, did not say a word in response; they only asked if he wanted something to eat. “I would consume any fare,” replied Don Quixote, “because, as I understand it, that would be most beneficial now.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

478. “Happy he, to whom heaven has given a piece of bread for which he is not bound to give thanks to any but heaven itself!”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

479. “It is a wise man’s duty to save himself for to-morrow, and not risk everything on one day.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

480. “Pero no he podido yo contravenir al orden de naturaleza; que en ella cada cosa engendra su semejante.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

481. “Another thing to strive for: reading your history should move the melancholy to laughter, increase the joy of the cheerful, not irritate the simple, fill the clever with admiration for its invention, not give the serious reason to scorn it, and allow the prudent to praise it.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

482. “The truth is, Senor, that I’m the most unfortunate doctor one could find anywhere in the world, where a physician can kill the sick person he’s treating and wants to be paid for his work, which is nothing but signing a piece of paper for some medicines that are made not by him but by the apothecary, and that’s the whole swindle; but when other people’s well-being costs me drops of blood, slaps, pinches, pinpricks, and lashes, they don’t give me an ardite.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

483. “Walk slowly; speak calmly, but not in a way that makes it seem you are listening to yourself, for all affectation is wrong. Eat sparingly at midday and even less for supper, for the health of the entire body is forged in the workshop of the stomach. Be temperate in your drinking, remembering that too much wine cannot keep either a secret or a promise.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

484. “Mi prima es muy inteligente, demasiado inteligente para una mujer. Le falta el encanto indefinible de la debilidad. Los pies de barro dan todo su valor a la imagen de oro. Tiene unos pies preciosos, pero no son de barro. Blancos pies de porcelana, si quieres. Han pasado por el fuego, y lo que el fuego no destruye, lo endurece.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

485. “I wanted only to offer it to you plain and bare, unadorned by a prologue or the endless catalogue of sonnets, epigrams and laudatory poems that are usually placed at the beginning of books.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

486. “Better is it for a soldier to die in battle than to save his life by running away. For my part I had rather be again present, were it possible, in that famous battle, than whole and sound without sharing ill the glory of it. The scars which a soldier exhibits in his breast and face are stars to guide others to the haven of honour and the love of just praise.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

487. “I want you, Sancho, to think well and to have a good opinion of plays, and to be equally well-disposed toward those who perform them and those who write them, because they are all the instruments whereby a great service is performed for the nation, holding up a mirror to every step we take and allowing us to see a vivid image of the actions of human life; there is no comparison that indicates what we are and what we should be more clearly than plays and players.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

488. “A la guerra me lleva mi necesidad; si tuviera dineros, no fuera, en verdad.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

489. “The innkeeper shouted at them to stop because he had already told them he was crazy, and that being crazy he would be absolved even if he killed them all. Don Quixote shouted even louder, calling them perfidious traitors and saying that the lord of the castle was a varlet and a discourteous knight for allowing knights errant to be so badly treated, and that if he had already received the order of chivalry, he would enlighten him as to the full extent of his treachery.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

490. “I am by nature too lazy and slothful to go looking for authors to say what I know how to say without them.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

491. “Is it possible that in all the time you have traveled with me you have not yet noticed that all things having to do with knights errant appear to be chimerical, foolish, senseless, and turned inside out? And not because they really are, but because hordes of enchanters always walk among us and alter and change everything and turn things into whatever they please, according to whether they wish to favor us or destroy us;.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

492. “We have not run across anyone,” responded Don Quixote, “but we found a saddle cushion and traveling case not far from here.” “I found them, too,” responded the goatherd, “but I never wanted to pick them up or go near them because I was afraid there’d be trouble and they’d say I stole them; the devil’s sly, and he puts things under our feet that make us stumble and fall, and we don’t know how or why.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

493. “Senor, sorrows were made not for animals but for men; but if men feel them too much, they turn into animals...”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

494. “You should know, Sancho, that a man is not worth more than any other if he does not do more than any other.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

495. “O thou, whoever thou art, rash knight that comest to lay hands on the armour of the most valorous errant that ever girt on sword, have a care what thou dost; touch it not unless thou wouldst lay down thy life as the penalty of thy rashness.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

496. “Despair not, valiant knight, nor regard as an untoward fate the position in which thou findest thyself; it may be that by these slips thy crooked fortune will make itself straight; for heaven by strange circuitous ways, mysterious and incomprehensible to man, raises up the fallen and makes rich the poor.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

497. “Mirad, maestresala – dijo la duquesa –, lo que el buen Sancho pide, y cumplidle su voluntad al pie de la letra.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

498. “I am Orlando who, Quixote, undone by fair Angelica, saw distant seas, and offered on the altars of Lady Fame the valor that respected oblivion. I cannot be your equal; I am humbled by your prowess, your noble deeds, your fame, for you, like me, have gone and lost your mind. But my equal you will be if you defeat the haughty Moor, the charging beast; today we are called equal in ill-fated love.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

499. “And this denial added more flames to the fire and more ardor to our desire, because, although it silenced our tongues, it could not silence our pens, which, with greater freedom that tongues, tend to reveal to the person we love what is hidden in our soul, for often the presence of the beloved confuses and silences the most determined intention and the boldest tongue.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

500. “Pero, puesto caso que corran igualmente las hermosuras, no por eso han de correr iguales los deseos, que no todas las hermosuras enamoran; que algunas alegran la vista y no rinden la voluntad;.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra