Quotes by Miguel de Cervantes

'Tis said of love that it sometimes goes, sometimes flies; runs with one, walks gravely with another; turns a third into ice, and sets a fourth in a flame: it wounds one, another it kills: like lightning it begins and ends in the same moment: it makes that fort yield at night which it besieged but in the morning; for there is no force able to resist it.

Love not what you are but only what you may become.

'Tis the part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not venture all his eggs in one basket.

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

Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as oil does above water.

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.

To withdraw is not to run away.

Be slow of tongue and quick of eye.

Now blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep: it covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; 'tis meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot. 'Tis the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap; and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise-man even. There is only one thing, that I dislike in sleep; 'tis that it resembles death; there's very little difference between a man in his first sleep, and a man in his last sleep.

He who sings frightens away his ills.