James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.
Cervantes
A man dishonoured is worse than dead.
Better a blush in the face than a blot in the heart.
Blessed be he who first invented sleep; it covers a man all over like a cloak.
Captivity is the greatest of all evils that can befall man.
Conceal not the meanness of thy family, nor think it disgraceful to be descended from peasants; for when it is seen thou art not thyself ashamed, no one will endeavour to make thee so.
Diligence is the mother of good fortune.
Don’t put too fine a point to your wit, for fear it should get blunted.
Dos linajes solo hay en el mundo, el “tener” y el “no tener”—There are but two families in the world, those who have, and those who have not.
Every one is as God made him, and often a great deal worse.
Falsehood is so much the more commendable, by how much more it resembles truth, and is the more pleasing the more it is doubtful and possible.
Fear has many eyes.
For the bow cannot possibly stand always bent, nor can human nature or human frailty subsist without some lawful recreation.
Forewarned, forearmed.
From great folks great favours are to be expected.
Gratitude which consists in good wishes may be said to be dead, as faith without good works is dead.
Happy the man to whom Heaven has given a morsel of bread without his being obliged to thank any other for it than Heaven itself.
He had a face like a benediction.
History is like sacred writing, for truth is essential to it.
In giants we must kill pride and arrogance; but our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.
It is a fine thing to command, though it were but a herd of cattle.
It is better for the man whom God helps than for him who rises early.
It is better to live on the crust of your own industry than on the fruits of other people’s.
It requires a long time to know any one.
Letters without virtue are like pearls in a dunghill.
Liberty is one of the most precious gifts that Heaven has bestowed on man, and captivity is the greatest evil that can befall him.
Luck is everything in promotion.
Necessity urges desperate measures.
Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.
No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly.
No padlocks, bolts, or bars can secure a maiden so well as her own reserve.
No slave, to lazy ease resign’d, / E’er triumphed over noble foes; / The monarch, Fortune, most is kind / To him who bravely dares oppose.
Nothing costs less or is cheaper than compliments of civility.
Nothing in itself deformed or incongruous can give us any real satisfaction.
Patience, and shuffle the cards.
Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.
Riches are of little avail in many of the calamities to which mankind are liable.
Since we have a good loaf, let us not look for cheesecakes.
Sleep is the best cure for waking troubles.
Sloth never arrived at the attainment of a good wish.
Steward or deputy may do well: but the lord himself is obliged to stir in the administration of justice.
The army is a school in which the niggardly become generous and the generous prodigal.
The knowledge of thyself will preserve thee from vanity.
The mean of true valour lies between the extremes of cowardice and rashness.
The phœnix, Hope, can wing her flight / Through the vast deserts of the skies, / And still defying fortunes spite, / Revive and from her ashes rise.
The pleasure which strikes the soul must be derived from the beauty and congruity it sees or conceives in those things which the sight or imagination lay before it.
The reputation of a woman is as a crystal mirror, shining and bright, but liable to be sullied by every breath that comes near it.
There are always more tricks in a town than are talked of.
There are no proverbial sayings which are not true.
There is a remedy for everything but death.
To this burden women are born; they must obey their husbands, be they never such blockheads.
True valour lies in the middle between cowardice and rashness.
Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as oil does above water.
Unseasonable mirth always turns to sorrow.
We must not stand upon trifles.
Where there is music, nothing really bad can be.
Woman’s counsel is not worth much, yet he that despises it is no wiser than he should be.