Playwrights From Spain

"Let us make hay while the sun shines."

"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."

"Little said is soonest mended."

"A close mouth catches no flies."

"A knight errant who turns mad for a reason deserves neither merit nor thanks. The thing is to do it without cause."

"My lady can guess what I would do in the wet if I do all this in the dry."

"You are a devil at everything, and there is no kind of thing in the 'versal world but what you can turn your hand to."

"It will grieve me so to the heart, that I shall cry my eyes out."

"Thou hast seen nothing yet."

"Let each man say what he chooses; if because of this I am criticized by the ignorant, I shall not be chastised by the learned."

"My memory is so bad that many times I forget my own name."

"Ready to split his sides with laughing."

"My honor is dearer to me than my life."

"Delay always breeds danger."

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

"Think before thou speakest."

"Let us forget and forgive injuries."

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

"They must needs go whom the Devil drives."

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

"More knave than fool."

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

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

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

"I begin to smell a rat."

"I will take my corporal oath on it."

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

""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"."

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

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

"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."

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

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

"Spare your breath to cool your porridge."

"The best sauce in the world is hunger."

"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 fair sex."

"de todos ha de haber en el mundo"

"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."

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

"Forewarned forearmed."

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

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

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