Philosophical Pessimists

"I say patience, and shuffle the cards."

"Comparisons are odious."

"Tell me thy company, and I'll tell thee what thou art."

"He has an oar in every man's boat, and a finger in every pie."

"There is no love lost, sir."

"A private sin is not so prejudicial in this world as a public indecency."

"Love and War are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the one as in the other."

"There are only two families in the world, the Haves and the Have-Nots."

"Marriage is a noose."

"La pluma es la lengua del alma: cuales fueren los conceptos que en ella se engendraren, tales serán sus escritos."

"Let every man look before he leaps."

"I'll turn over a new leaf."

"Are we to mark this day with a white or a black stone?"

"There is a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us out flat some time or other."

"As well look for a needle in a bottle of hay."

"A stout man's heart breaks bad luck."

"Forewarned forearmed."

"Remember the old saying, "Faint heart ne'er won fair lady.""

"A little in one's own pocket is better than much in another man's purse. 'Tis good to keep a nest egg. Every little makes a mickle."

"de todos ha de haber en el mundo"

"The fair sex."

"Journey over all the universe in a map, without the expense and fatigue of traveling, without suffering the inconveniences of heat, cold, hunger, and thirst."

"The best sauce in the world is hunger."

"Spare your breath to cool your porridge."

"Cada uno es como Dios le hizo, y aún peor muchas veces."

"There is no book so bad," said the bachelor, "but something good may be found in it."

"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."

"History is in a manner a sacred thing, so far as it contains truth; for where truth is, the supreme Father of it may also be said to be, at least, inasmuch as concerns truth."

"When the head aches, all the members partake of the pains."

"It is not the hand but the understanding of a man that may be said to write."

""You are a villain and a scoundrel," said Don Quixote, "and you are the one who is vacant and foolish; I have more upstairs than the whore who bore you ever did"."

"I would have nobody to control me; I would be absolute: and who but I? Now, he that is absolute can do what he likes; he that can do what he likes can take his pleasure; he that can take his pleasure can be content; and he that can be content has no more to desire. So the matter 's over; and come what will come, I am satisfied."

"The bow cannot always stand bent, nor can human frailty subsist without some lawful recreation."

"It is a common proverb, beauteous princess, that diligence is the mother of good fortune."

"It is past all controversy that what costs dearest is, and ought to be, most valued."

"Let none presume to tell me that the pen is preferable to the sword."

"The proof of the pudding is in the eating."

"I will take my corporal oath on it."

"I begin to smell a rat."

"Here is the devil-and-all to pay."

"I never saw a more dreadful battle in my born days."

"I can tell where my own shoe pinches me; and you must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff."

"More knave than fool."

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

"They must needs go whom the Devil drives."

"I must speak the truth, and nothing but the truth."

"Let us forget and forgive injuries."

"Think before thou speakest."

"In me the need to talk is a primary impulse, and I can't help saying right off what comes to my tongue."

"Delay always breeds danger."