Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Miguel de Cervantes (Spanish Novelist)

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547–1616) was a Spanish novelist, poet, and dramatist. He is widely regarded as not only the greatest writer in the Spanish language but also as one of the world’s pre-eminent novelists. His masterpiece Don Quixote has been translated into more languages than any other book except the Bible.

Born in Alcalá de Henares near Madrid, Cervantes became a highly committed professional soldier. His patriotic career included fighting at the Battle of Lepanto (1571,) where he was wounded and lost for life the use of his left hand. Pirates took him in 1575, and he spent five years as a prisoner at Algiers. Subsequently, he served as a government agent who, desperately struggling to earn a living, turned to write plays and romances.

Cervantes’s first attempt at fiction was a pastoral romance La Galatea (1585,) which was followed by his masterpiece, Don Quixote—published in two volumes, Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605, 1615) is an excellent archetype of Western fiction: the unlikely hero—an impoverished country gentleman—who goes mad from reading too much and decides to put the world to rights by becoming a knight-errant.

The first part of Don Quixote was published to immediate Spanish acclaim in 1605. However, Cervantes made many powerful enemies among those who worried that Quixote was a satire of themselves. Cervantes died one year after publishing Part 2 in 1615, just one day before Shakespeare died.

By the 19th century, Don Quixote was no longer viewed as a comic novel, but instead as a philosophical one devoted to uncovering the nature of human identity in the battle between self and society. Cervantes’s synthesis of the epic and dramatic genres into a new form that evolved into the modern novel, and the characters that he created, along with their obsessions, have entered the deepest level of our culture. Don Quixote was revered by such writers as Laurence Sterne, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gustave Flaubert, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Franz Kafka, and Herman Melville.

Cervantes’s other works include two surviving plays and a collection of short stories, Novelas Ejemplares (1613; Exemplary Stories) and a tale of adventure, Persiles y Sigismunda, published posthumously in 1617.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Miguel de Cervantes

Nothing costs less, nor is cheaper, than the compliments of civility.
—Miguel de Cervantes

One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world was better for this.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Endurance

I am of opinion that there are no proverbial sayings which are not true, because they are all sentences drawn from experience itself, who is the mother of all sciences.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Proverbs

Where one door closes, another opens.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Opportunity

Take away the cause, and the effect ceases.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Appropriateness, Reason, Aptness

Miracle me no miracles.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Miracles

Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Creation

Fortune leaves always some door open to come at a remedy.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Life

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.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Man

No man is more than another unless he does more than another.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Service

Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Perseverance, Idleness, Persistence, Fortune, Wishes

All sorrows are good or are less with bread
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Eating

A private sin is not so prejudicial in this world, as a public indecency.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Sin

Fear is sharp-sighted, and can see things under ground, and much more in the skies.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Fear, Anxiety

Let us forget and forgive injuries.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Forgiveness

Death eats up all things, both the young lamb and old sheep; and I have heard our parson say, death values a prince no more than a clown; all’s fish that comes to his net; he throws at all, and sweeps stakes; he’s no mower that takes a nap at noon-day, but drives on, fair weather or foul, and cuts down the green grass as well as the ripe corn: he’s neither squeamish nor queesy-stomach d, for he swallows without chewing, and crams down all things into his ungracious maw; and you can see no belly he has, he has a confounded dropsy, and thirsts after men’s lives, which he gurgles down like mother’s milk.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Dying, Death

Everyone is as God made him, and often a great deal worse.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Humanity, Humankind

Fortune always leaves some door open in disasters whereby to come at a remedy.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Fortune

He that gives quickly gives twice.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Giving

Every one is the son of his own works.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Character, Work

The mean of true valor lies between the extremes of cowardice and rashness.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Valor

He preaches well that lives well.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Living, Evangelism, Preaching

And for the citation of so many authors, ’tis the easiest thing in nature. Find out one of these books with an alphabetical index, and without any farther ceremony, remove it verbatim into your own… there are fools enough to be thus drawn into an opinion of the work; at least, such a flourishing train of attendants will give your book a fashionable air, and recommend it for sale.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Plagiarism

My grandma (rest her soul) used to say, “There were but two families in the world, have-much and have-little.”
—Miguel de Cervantes

Drink moderately, for drunkenness neither keeps a secret, nor observes a promise
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Drinking

To be prepared is half the victory.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Planning

By the streets of “by and by,” one arrives at the house of “never.”
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: The Future, Future, Procrastination

The most difficult character in comedy is that of a fool, and he must be no simpleton who plays the part.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Fools, Acting, Actors

They who lose today may win tomorrow.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Tomorrow, Winning, The Future

Faint heart never won fair lady.
—Miguel de Cervantes
Topics: Coward, Courage, Defects, Love, Cowardice

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