Top 500 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Quotes (2026 Update)
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451. “They can expect nothing but their labor for their pains. – Cervantes.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

452. “What a man has, so much he is sure of.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

453. “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

454. “It is past all controversy that what costs dearest is, and ought to be, most valued.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

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

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

456. “In short, virtue cannot live where envy reigns, nor liberality subsist with niggardliness.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

457. “Sancho tried to amuse him and cheer him up by chatting to him, and said, among other things, what is recorded in the next chapter.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

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

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

459. “He that will not when he may, When he would, he should have nay.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

460. “Good Christians should never avenge injuries.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

461. “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

462. “And so I believe that the sage I have mentioned must, a moment ago, have placed in your thoughts and on your tongue the appellation “The Knight of the Sorry Face”, which is what I propose to call myself from now on; and to ensure that the title suits me all the better, I am resolved to have painted on my coat of arms, at the earliest opportunity, a very sorry face.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

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

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

464. “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

465. “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

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

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

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

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

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

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

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

471. “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

472. “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

473. “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

474. “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

475. “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

476. “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

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

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

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

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

479. “Honor and virtue are adornments of the soul, without which the fairest body, although it may appear to be, is not beautiful.”

— 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. “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

482. “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

483. “Is it surprising to anyone that Don Lorenzo was extremely happy to be praised by Don Quixote, even though he considered him mad? Oh Flattery, how powerful you are, how far you extend, how widespread the boundaries of your pleasant domain!”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

484. “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

485. “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

486. “To give expression to humour, and write in a strain of graceful pleasantry, is the gift of great geniuses. The cleverest character in comedy is the clown, for he who would make people take him for a fool, must not be one.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

487. “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

488. “Canta como una calandria, danza como el pensamiento, baila como una perdida, lee y escribe como un maestro de escuela y cuenta como un avariento.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

489. “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

490. “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

491. “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

492. “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

493. “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

494. “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

495. “Ye love-smitten host, know that to Dulcinea only I am dough and sugar-paste, flint to all others; for her I am honey, for you aloes. For.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

496. “The best sauce in the world is hunger, and as the poor are never without that, they always eat with a relish.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

497. “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

498. “History is like a sacred thing; it must be truthful, and wherever truth is, there God is; but despite this, there are some who write and toss off books as if they were fritters.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

499. “Thus we see the truth of the old saying, to the effect that the innocent must sometimes pay for the sins of the guilty.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

500. “There is not the least thing can be said or done but people will talk and find fault.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra