The 80 best phrases of Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) is, without a doubt, one of the greatest exponents of Spanish and world literature. Even today he is still very present in thousands of bookstores with his highly acclaimed work Don Quixote de la Mancha, which has been one of the books with the most translations and sales worldwide.

Being one of the greatest exponents of the well-known Spanish Golden Age, it is possible to see in his different works a strong inspiration in the agitated experiences of him and the chaotic reality that reigned in that time.

• We recommend you read: "50 phrases of Gabriel García Márquez (about life and love)"

Best phrases of Miguel de Cervantes

To honor his work we have brought the best phrases of this writer of the Spanish language.

1. What madness or nonsense leads me to count other people's faults, having so much to say about mine?

We tend to give our opinion about other people's problems even when we cannot solve our own.

2. Be brief in your reasoning, for there is no one happy if it is long.

Reasons should be clear and precise rather than embellished.

3. To do good to villains is to pour water into the sea.

There are times when acting nice to someone who doesn't deserve it is overrated.

4. I want to be bad in the hope of being good rather than good for the purpose of being bad.

There is a clear difference in this interesting argument.

5. Entrust yourself wholeheartedly to God, who often rains his mercies in the time when hopes are the driest.

It is well said that God squeezes but does not hang.

6. Doing good never lacks a prize.

Doing good should always be applauded.

7. The abundance of things, even if they are good, makes them not esteemed, and the scarcity, even of the bad ones, is esteemed at something.

When we have too much, we can stop appreciating the value of things.

8. It is more worth it on the face than the stain on the heart.

All suffering can be overcome with will.

9. He who does not know how to enjoy fortune when it comes to him, he should not complain if it goes too far.

You have to take advantage of every opportunity and enjoy whenever you can.

10. Make it your business to know yourself, which is the hardest lesson in the world.

If there is something worth investing in, it is to be well with ourselves.

11. When anger comes out of mother, the father does not have the language, tutor or brake that corrects it.

There are times when we can't keep the annoyance to ourselves.

12. Perhaps in simplicity and humility the most outstanding rejoicings tend to hide.

In both good times and bad, we tend to discover great truths.

13. Eat little and eat less, because the health of the whole body is forged in the office of the stomach.

Our greatest source of disease is what we eat.

14. Falsehood has wings and flies, and the truth follows behind it, so that by the time people realize the deception it is already too late.

There are those who almost prefer to live in deception than to hear the truth.

15. This one they call Fortuna is a drunk and capricious woman, and above all, blind, and thus she does not see what she does, nor does she know who she knocks down.

Fortune is a matter of chance. We can be up and the next second, down.

16. Each one is as God made him, and even worse many times.

Many people, despite knowing the damage they do, refuse to change.

17. He who reads a lot and walks a lot, sees a lot and knows a lot.

Read and explore, keep your curiosity awake.

18. Yesterday the one who laughs today cried and today the one who laughed yesterday cries.

We all have good and bad days, so never underestimate anything.

19. He who has never loved cannot be good.

Someone who has not loved is a being who does not know complete happiness.

20. No science, as far as science is concerned, deceives; deception is in those who do not know it.

The deception is born of who claims to know something that, in reality, he ignores.

21. The actions that neither change nor alter the truth of history, there is no need to write them, they must result in contempt for the lord of history.

Even history has its own half-truths.

22. The path of virtue is very narrow and the path of vice is wide and spacious.

It is very tempting to fall into sin. And more if it is addictive.

23. Oh, memory, mortal enemy of my rest!

In the quiet is where our mind attacks without mercy with memories not so forgotten.

24. If jealousy is a sign of love, it is like the fever in a sick man: having it is a sign of having life, but a sick and ill-disposed life.

Jealousy is never a sign of love.

25. Weapons require spirit like letters.

Sometimes peace comes without raising arms.

26. The truth thins and does not break, and always walks on lies like oil on water.

Sooner or later the truth always comes out.

27. Who sings, his evils frighten.

It is important to constantly seek happiness in life.

28. Love and desire are two different things; that not everything that is loved is desired, nor everything that is desired is loved.

A phrase that expresses an essential difference to take into account.

29. Music composes broken spirits and relieves the labors that are born of the spirit.

Music has a charm that lasts.

30. The evils that do not have the strength to end life do not have the strength to end patience.

In most cases, the problems have a solution.

31. Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that the heavens gave men; The treasures that the land and the sea hold cannot be equaled with it.

Freedom is what allows us to express ourselves and develop as we wish.

32. Of high spirits is to aspire to high things.

So do not settle, aim for the highest.

33. Through the street of "I'm coming" you go to the house of "never".

Do you tend to procrastinate until you end up doing nothing?

34. Lord, sorrows were not made for beasts, but for men; but if men feel them too much, they become beasts.

People become monsters when their pain is uncontrollable.

35. For freedom, as well as for honor, one can and must risk life.

Life is to be lived without restrictions.

36. Promises of lovers, for the most part, are light to promise and very heavy to fulfill.

Promises of love are not always kept, however sincere they may be.

37. A withdrawal is not a defeat.

Sometimes you need to take a step back to regain strength.

38. Don't walk, Sancho, disheveled and loose, because the decomposed dress gives indications of a disgruntled spirit.

Phrase of the acclaimed Don Quixote de la Mancha.

39. Among the major sins that men commit, although some say it is pride, I say that is ingratitude, sticking to what is usually said: that the world is full of the ungrateful hell.

Being ungrateful is a miserable act.

40. Love and affection easily blind the eyes of understanding.

It is very easy to blind ourselves to what dazzles us.

41. Too much sanity can be the worst of madness, seeing life as it is and not as it should be.

Sometimes we must have a bit of madness in us to look at life from another point of view.

42. That is why I judge and discern, as a certain and notorious thing, that love has its glory at the gates of hell.

You have to tread carefully, even among things that seem so certain.

43. Give credit to deeds and not to words.

The best way to prove something is acting.

44. The year that is abundant with poetry, is usually full of hunger.

Ironically, the most powerful lyrics emerge in the darkest moments of the story.

45. There may be love without jealousy, but not without fear.

There will always be the fear of losing the loved one.

46. Friendships that are true no one can disturb them.

True friendships can survive great attacks.

47. Even among demons there are some worse than others, and among many bad men there is usually a good one.

They are not all completely bad nor are they all good.

48. Trade that does not feed its owner, is not worth two beans.

Do something you're proud of, love and can live with.

49. Trust in time, which usually gives sweet solutions to many bitter difficulties.

Things usually get better with time.

50. Is it possible that your grace does not know that the comparisons made from wit to wit, from value to value, from beauty to beauty and from lineage to lineage are always hateful and unwelcome?

Comparisons between different statuses are unfair.

51. Being freedom the most beloved thing, not only of the people of reason, even more so of the animals that lack it.

Every living being appreciates his freedom.

52. She fights in me and wins in me, and I live and breathe in her, and have life and being.

Fragment of Don Quixote for Dulcinea.

53. Don't you know that recklessness is not bravery?

Courage is facing fear. Recklessness is putting yourself at risk unnecessarily.

54. There is no memory that time does not erase or sorrow that death does not end.

There are things that are inevitably lost over time.

55. Vengeance punishes, but does not remove guilt.

The faults are terrible weights on the shoulders that are difficult to remove.

56. The man well prepared for the fight has already achieved half a victory.

Believing in yourself is half of what we need to succeed.

57. Because neither good nor evil can last forever; and just as the evil has lasted a long time, the good must now be near.

A great sentence. Do you think he was right?

58. Good and true friendship should not be suspect in anything.

A true friendship is one where there are no fears or secrets.

59. Where one door closes, another opens.

There are always new opportunities waiting to be found.

60. Love is invisible and enters and leaves where it wants without anyone asking it to account for its actions

Love doesn't need reasons to appear.

61. Wit and humor do not reside in slow minds.

You have to have attitude and intelligence for creativity.

62. In the beginnings of love, quick disappointments are usually qualified remedies.

Not all love beginnings are sweet and romantic.

63. Because you are not experienced in the things of the world, all things that are somewhat difficult seem impossible to you.

Things seem impossible to us until we know them.

64. What man can claim to know the enigma of a woman's mind?

Is it really difficult to know the female mind?

65. Take my advice and live for a long, long time. Because the craziest thing a man can do in this life is to let himself die.

Wasting our time of life should be considered a tragedy.

66. There are only two lineages in the world, as a grandmother of mine used to say, which are having and not having.

The lineages that really interest us the most.

67. Walking lands and communicating with different people makes men discreet.

The more we get to know others, the more discreet we become because we learn to respect.

68. Each one is the architect of his own fortune.

We are all responsible for our actions and decisions.

69. Where envy reigns, virtue cannot live nor where there is a shortage of liberality.

A person with bad feelings cannot claim to be the best of all.

70. Someone considers himself daring when he compares himself with others. Some I think were so discreet that they were unable to compare themselves except to themselves.

It is useless to compare ourselves to others, because each one is a different world.

71. Love joins the scepters with the crooks; greatness with lowliness; makes the impossible possible; equalizes different states and becomes powerful as death.

Love has immense power and is the only one capable of changing things.

72. Well-born people are grateful for the benefits they receive.

Never stop being grateful for what you have, because you don't know when you will stop having them.

73. Ingratitude is the daughter of pride.

Pride will never give us favorable fruits for the future.

74. Honest words give us a clear indication of the honesty of the one who pronounces or writes them.

Honesty is expressed with firm and clear certainties, as well as with actions that support them.

75. Do not wish and you will be the richest man in the world.

There are desires that turn into obsession and then into greed that never ends.

76. Be neither always strict nor always soft and choose between these two extremes; that therein lies the point of discretion.

It is important to maintain a balance in order to achieve harmony.

77. The possessor of riches does not make him happy by having them, but by spending them, and not by spending them as he wants, but by knowing how to spend them.

If you don't know how to spend your wealth properly and profitably, then you are not doing anything productive with it.

78. Blessed is he to whom heaven gave a piece of bread, with no obligation left to thank anyone other than heaven itself!

Never forget who reached out to you when you needed it most.

79. Sleep is relief from miseries for those who suffer from them while awake.

A phrase that harbors a sad reality.

80. There is no path that does not end if laziness does not oppose it.

Laziness is the evil that slows us down and prevents us from moving forward.