Love is invisible, and comes in and goes out as he likes, without anyone calling him to account for what he does.
Do we know exactly who we are? The more urgently we quest for our authentic selves, the more they tend to recede. The Knight and Sancho, as the great work closes, know exactly who they are, not so much by their adventures as through their marvelous conversations, be they quarrels or exchanges of insights.
Having cleaned his armor and made a full helmet out of a simple headpiece, and having given a name to his horse and decided on one for himself, he realized that the only thing left for him to do was to find a lady to love; for the knight errant without a lady-love was a tree without leaves or fruit, a body without a soul.
After the gratifications of brutish appetites are past, the greatest pleasure then is to get rid of that which entertained it.
But I have heard it said,” said Don Quixote, “that troubles take wing for the man who can sing.
I’m a peaceful, mild, and quiet man, and I know how to conceal any insult because I have a wife and children to support and care for.
How is it possible that things so trivial and so easy to remedy can have the power to perplex and absorb an intelligence as mature as yours, and one so ready to demolish and pass over much greater difficulties?
No con quien naces, sino con quien paces.
Let each look to himself and not try to make out white black, and black white; for each of us is as God made him, aye, and often worse.
And thus, from too little sleep and too much reading, his brain dried up and he completely lost his judgment.
But our depraved age does not deserve to enjoy such a blessing as those ages enjoyed when knights-errant took upon their shoulders the defence of kingdoms, the protection of damsels, the succour of orphans and minors, the chastisement of the proud, and the recompense of the humble.
The Panza is here,” said Sancho, before anyone could reply, “and Don Quixotissimus too; and so, most distressedest Duenissima, you may say what you willissimus, for we are all readissimus to do you any servissimus.
We know already ample experience that it does not require much cleverness or much learning to be a governor, for there are a hundred round about us that scarcely know how to read.
It is by rugged paths like these they go That scale the heights of immortality, Unreached by those that falter here below.
And indeed, if the truth is to be told, what I eat in my corner without form or fuss has much more relish for me, even though it be bread and onions, than the turkeys of those other tables where I am forced to chew slowly, drink little, wipe my mouth every minute, and cannot sneeze or cough if I want or do other things that are the privileges of liberty and solitude.
According to an ancient and common tradition in the kingdom of Great Britain, this king did not die, but was transformed into a raven by the art of enchantment and, in the course of time, he shall return to rule again and regain his kingdom and his scepter.
And yet the power of thought has always been so far beyond us that the main difference between men and animals is: they can think and we can’t.
Nothing flows from her, vile rabble.
In short, he became so absorbed in his books that he spent his nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring over them; and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits.
The landlord replied he had no chickens, for the kites had stolen them.