I drink when I have occasion, and sometimes when I have no occasion. Miguel de Cervantes More Quotes by Miguel de Cervantes More Quotes From Miguel de Cervantes I do not deny that what happened to us is a thing worth laughing at. But it is not worth telling, for not everyone is sufficiently intelligent to be able to see things from the right point of view. Miguel de Cervantes intelligent views laughing Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. Miguel de Cervantes thirty giants battle Oh Senor" said the niece. "Your grace should send them to be burned (books), just like all the rest, because it's very likely that my dear uncle, having been cured of the chivalric disease, will read these and want to become a shepherd and wander through the woods and meadows singing and playing and, what would be even worse, become a poet, and that, they say, is an incurable and contagious disease. Miguel de Cervantes niece uncles book Truly I was born to be an example of misfortune, and a target at which the arrows of adversary are aimed. Miguel de Cervantes arrows target example It is one thing to write as poet and another to write as a historian: the poet can recount or sing about things not as they were, but as they should have been, and the historian must write about them not as they should have been, but as they were, without adding or subtracting anything from the truth. Miguel de Cervantes epic-poems should-have writing Here lies a gentleman bold Who was so very brave He went to lengths untold, And on the brink of the grave Death had on him no hold. By the world he set small store-- He frightened it to the core-- Yet somehow, by Fate's plan, Though he'd lived a crazy man, When he died he was sane once more. Miguel de Cervantes fate crazy lying To think that the affairs of this life always remain in the same state is a vain presumption; indeed they all seem to be perpetually changing and moving in a circular course. Spring is followed by summer, summer by autumn, and autumn by winter, which is again followed by spring, and so time continues its everlasting round. But the life of man is ever racing to its end, swifter than time itself, without hope of renewal, unless in the next that is limitless and infinite. Miguel de Cervantes summer spring moving And thus being totally preoccupied, he rode so slowly that the sun was soon glowing with such intense heat that it would have melted his brains, if he'd had any. Miguel de Cervantes glowing sun brain My heart is wax molded as she pleases, but enduring as marble to retain. Miguel de Cervantes endure please heart The reason for the unreason with which you treat my reason , so weakens my reason that with reason I complain of your beauty. Miguel de Cervantes hilarious classic complaining He had a face like a blessing. Miguel de Cervantes grace blessing faces A man prepared has half fought the battle. Miguel de Cervantes progress battle men Tis ill talking of halters in the house of a man that was hanged. Miguel de Cervantes house talking men One shouldn't talk of halters in the hanged man's house. Miguel de Cervantes house men You must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff. Miguel de Cervantes advice bird thinking A person dishonored is worst than dead. Miguel de Cervantes worst literature honor When in doubt, lean to the side of # mercy . Miguel de Cervantes mercy doubt sides Never meddle with play-actors, for they're a favoured race. Miguel de Cervantes theatre race play It is impossible for good or evil to last forever; and hence it follows that the evil having lasted so long, the good must be now nigh at hand. Miguel de Cervantes evil long hands "He preaches well that lives well," quoth Sancho, "that's all the divinity I can understand." Miguel de Cervantes divinity wells life