Top 500 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 5 of 10

201. “One swallow alone does not make a summer.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

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

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

203. “My honor is dearer to me than my life.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

204. “A good joke, that!” returned Don Quixote. “Books that have been printed with the king’s licence, and with the approbation of those to whom they have been submitted, and read with universal delight, and extolled by great and small, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, gentle and simple, in a word by people of every sort, of whatever rank or condition they may be – that these should be lies!”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

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

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

206. “This, however, is of but little importance to our tale; it will be enough not to stray a hair’s breadth from the truth in the telling of it.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

207. “To withdraw is not to run away, and to stay is no wise action, when there’s more reason to fear than to hope.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

208. “I shall be as secret as the grave.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

209. “I have never died all my life.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

210. “The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

211. “He who gives early gives twice.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

212. “Troubles take wing for the man who can sing.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

213. “It will be seen in the frying of the eggs.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

214. “Honesty is the best policy, I will stick to that. The good shall have my hand and heart, but the bad neither foot nor fellowship. And in my mind, the main point of governing, is to make a good beginning.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

215. “Those two fatal words, Mine and Thine.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

216. “That which costs little is less valued.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

217. “To be good to the vile is to throw water into the sea.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

218. “A stout heart breaks bad luck.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

219. “Be temperate in your drinking, remembering that too much wine cannot keep either a secret or a promise.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

220. “Laughter distances us from that which is ugly and therefore potentially distressing, and indeed enables us to obtain paradoxical pleasure and therapeutic benefit from it.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

221. “The darts of love are blunted by maiden modesty.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

222. “Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts heaven gave to men; the treasures under the earth and beneath the sea cannot compare to it; for freedom, as well as for honor, one can and should risk one’s life, while captivity, on the other hand, is the greatest evil that can befall men.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

223. “The pitcher goes so often to the fountain that if gets broken.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

224. “They must needs go whom the Devil drives.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

225. “He who has the judge for his father goes into court with an easy mind.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

226. “Many count their chickens before they are hatched; and where they expect bacon, meet with broken bones.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

227. “A blot in thy escutcheon to all futurity.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

228. “Knight of the Ill-Favored Face.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

229. “The foolish sayings of the rich pass for wise saws in society.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

230. “Woman’s advice has little value, but he who won’t take it is a fool.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

231. “Miracle me no miracles.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

232. “What is bought is cheaper than a gift.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

233. “Let us not throw the rope after the bucket.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

234. “Three things too much, and three too little are pernicious to man; to speak much, and know little; to spend much, and have little; to presume much, and be worth little.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

235. “The little birds have God for their caterer.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

236. “Anyone who does not know how to make the most of his luck has no right to complain if it passes by him.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

237. “How will he who does not know how to govern himself know how to govern others?”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

238. “Not with whom you are born, but with whom you are bred.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

239. “A father may have a child who is ugly and lacking in all the graces, and the love he feels for him puts a blindfold over his eyes so that he does not see his defects but considers them signs of charm and intelligence and recounts them to his friends as if they were clever and witty.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

240. “I only understand that while I’m sleeping I have no fear, or hope, or trouble, or glory; blessed be whoever invented sleep, the mantle that covers all human thought...”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

241. “Let me leap out of the frying-pan into the fire; or, out of God’s blessing into the warm sun.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

242. “When we leave this world, and are laid in the earth, the prince walks as narrow a path as the day-laborer.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

243. “Cunning cheats itself wholly, and other people partially.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

244. “Here lies a gentleman bold Who was so very brave He went to lengths untold, And on the brink of the grave Death had on him no hold. By the world he set small store – He frightened it to the core – Yet somehow, by Fate’s plan, Though he’d lived a crazy man, When he died he was sane once more.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

245. “Think before thou speakest.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

246. “My thoughts ran a wool-gathering.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

247. “True valor lies between cowardice and rashness.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

248. “Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

249. “There is a strange charm in the thoughts of a good legacy, or the hopes of an estate, which wondrously removes or at least alleviates the sorrow that men would otherwise feel for the death of friends.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

250. “She fights and vanquishes in me, and I live and breathe in her, and I have life and being.”

— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra