Julius Caesar, that valiant Roman emperor, was asked what was the best death, and he responded the one that was unexpected, sudden, and unforeseen...
Most knights today would rather rustle in damasks, brocades, and the other rich fabrics of their clothes than creak in chain mail; no longer do knights sleep in the fields, subject to the rigors of heaven, wearing all their armor from head to foot; no longer does anyone, with his feet still in the stirrups and leaning on his lance, catch forty winks, as they say, as the knights errant used to do.
En fin, famoso caballero, no pueden las tinieblas de malicia ni de la ignorancia encubrir y escurecer la luz del valor y de la virtud.
By now the night had grown even darker, and a good number of lights began to move through the forest, just as the dry exhalations of the earth move across the sky and to our eyes seem like shooting stars.
Love and war are exactly alike. It is lawful to use tricks and slights to obtain a desired end.
What’s this then?” the friend asked, crossing himself as if he had seen a ghost. “Are you really Ensign Campuzano? Am I really seeing you around here? I thought you were in Flanders making free with your pikestaff, not hobbling along here with your cutlass for a walking stick. How pale and scrawny you look!
So suddenly? It must’ve been for love. That love is strong medicine, and often carries a strong chaser of regret.
You should know, Sancho, that a man is not worth more than any other if he does not do more than any other.
And this denial added more flames to the fire and more ardor to our desire, because, although it silenced our tongues, it could not silence our pens, which, with greater freedom that tongues, tend to reveal to the person we love what is hidden in our soul, for often the presence of the beloved confuses and silences the most determined intention and the boldest tongue.
The best sauce in the world is hunger, and as the poor are never without that, they always eat with a relish.
To give expression to humour, and write in a strain of graceful pleasantry, is the gift of great geniuses. The cleverest character in comedy is the clown, for he who would make people take him for a fool, must not be one.
Do you think the Amaryllises, Phyllises, Sylvias, Dianas, Galateas, Alidas, and all the rest that fill books, ballads, barbershops, and theaters are really ladies of flesh and blood who belong to those who celebrate them? No, of course not, for most are imagined in order to provide a subject for their verses, and so that people will think of them as lovers and men who have the capacity to be lovers.
Do you mean to say, Sancho,” responded Don Quixote, “that I felt no pain when you were tossed in the blanket? If that is what you mean, do not say it and do not think it, for at the time I felt more pain in my spirit than you did in your body. But let us put that aside for now; there will be time for us to ponder this and draw the proper conclusion;.
Siempre deja la ventura una puerta abierta en las desdichas, para dar remedio a ellas.
Bare i was born and bare i remain and if i lose nothing was little i gain.
But who in the world can boast that he has penetrated and understood the confused thought and mutable condition of a woman? No one, certainly.
No hay memoria a quien el tiempo no acabe, ni dolor que muerte no le consuma.
The best sauce in the world is hunger, and since poor people have plenty of that, they always eat with great pleasure.
But what’s that book next to it?” “La Galatea, by Miguel de Cervantes,”24 said the barber. “This Cervantes has been a good friend of mine for many years, and I know that he is better versed in misfortunes than in verses. His book has a certain creativity; it proposes something and concludes nothing. We have to wait for the second part he has promised; perhaps with that addition it will achieve the mercy denied to it now; in the meantime, keep it locked away in your house, my friend.
And if I try to reject him with disdain, I can see that if he does not achieve his ends in the proper way, he will use force, and I shall be dishonored and have no excuse when I am blamed by those who do not know how blamelessly I find myself in this situation.