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Miguel de Cervantes

Spanish writer best remembered for `Don Quixote' which satirizes chivalry and influenced the development of the novel form (1547-1616)

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Fortune leaves always some door open to come at a remedy.
One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars and the world will be better for this.
Every man was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as oil does above water.
I never thrust my nose into other men's porridge. It is no bread and butter of mine every man for himself, and God for us all.
A little in one's own pocket is better than much in another man's purse.
'Tis an old saying, the Devil lurks behind the cross. All is not gold that glitters. From the tail of the plough, Bamba was made King of Spain and from his silks and riches was Rodrigo cast to be devoured by the snakes.
'Tis said of love that it sometimes goes, sometimes flies runs with one, walks gravely with another turns a third into ice, and sets a fourth in a flame it wounds one, another it kills like lightning it begins and ends in the same moment it makes that fort yield at night which it besieged but in the morning for there is no force able to resist it.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
A closed mouth catches no flies.
A good name is better than riches.
A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.
A word to the wise is enough.
All is not gold that glitters.
Among the attributes of God, although they are all equal, mercy shines with even more brilliancy than justice.
An honest man's word is as good as his bond.
As ill-luck would have it.
As they use to say, spick and span new.
Be brief, for no discourse can please when too long.
Be slow of tongue and quick of eye.
Building castles in the air, and making yourself a laughing-stock.
Delay always breeds danger and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.
Delay always breeds danger.
Diligence is the mother of good fortune.
Don't put too fine a point to your wit for fear it should get blunted.
Every man is as Heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.
Everyone is as God has made him, and oftentimes a great deal worse.
Fear is sharp-sighted, and can see things under ground, and much more in the skies.
God bears with the wicked, but not forever.
He has an oar in every man's boat, and a finger in every pie.
He is as mad as a March hare.
I can look sharp as well as another, and let me alone to keep the cobwebs out of my eyes.
I drink when I have occasion, and sometimes when I have no occasion.
I find my familiarity with thee has bred contempt.
I must follow him through thick and thin.
I say that good painters imitated nature but that bad ones vomited it.
I shall be as secret as the grave.
I think it a very happy accident.
I was so free with him as not to mince the matter.
Ill-luck, you know, seldom comes alone.
In the night all cats are gray.
It is a true saying that a man must eat a peck of salt with his friend before he knows him.
It is good to live and learn.
It is past all controversy that what costs dearest is, and ought to be, most valued.
It is the part of a wise man to keep himself to-day for to-morrow, and not to venture all his eggs in one basket.
It is very difficult to be wholly joyous or wholly sad on this earth. The comic, when it is human, soon takes upon itself a face of pain and some of our griefs . . . have their source in weaknesses which must be recognized with smiling compassion as the common inheritance of us all.
Let every man look before he leaps.
Let every man mind his own business.
Let me leap out of the frying-pan into the fire or, out of God's blessing into the warm sun.
Let us make hay while the sun shines.
Liberty is one of the most valuable blessings that Heaven has bestowed upon mankind.
Little said is soonest mended.
Love not what you are, but what you may become.
Make it thy business to know thyself, which is the most difficult lesson in the world.
Man have to have friends even in hell.
Many count their chickens before they are hatched and where they expect bacon, meet with broken bones.
Many go out for wool, and come home shorn themselves.
My heart is wax moulded as she pleases, but enduring as marble to retain.
Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.
Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.
Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.
Sing away sorrow, cast away care.
Spare your breath to cool your porridge.
Tell me thy company, and I will tell thee what thou art.
That's the nature of women not to love when we love them, and to love when we love them not.
The ass will carry his load, but not a double load ride not a free horse to death.
The brave man carves out his fortune, and every man is the son of his own works.
The more thou stir it, the worse it will be.
The pen is the tongue of the mind.
The pot calls the kettle black.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
There are men that will make you books, and turn them loose into the world, with as much dispatch as they would do a dish of fritters.
There are only two families in the world, the Haves and Have-Nots.
There is a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us out flat some time or other.
There is a time for some things, and a time for all things a time for great things, and a time for small things.
There is no love lost between us.
They can expect nothing but their labour for their pains.
Those who'll play with cats must expect to be scratched.
Thou art a cat, and a rat, and a coward.
Time ripens all things. No man is born wise.
Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.
Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be
What a man has, so much he is sure of.
When the head aches, all the members partake of the pain.
When thou art at Rome, do as they do at Rome.
Which I have earned with the sweat of my brows.
Why do you lead me a wild-goose chase
Within a stone's throw of it.
You are a king by your own fireside, as much as any monarch in his throne.
You cannot eat your cake and have your cake.
You may as well expect pears from an elm.

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