"For every judge we sow, we gather six attorneys, two draftsmen, four notaries, five barristers, and five thousand negotiators, and the crop comes every day."

"Many more people fall ill through bores than through pestilence; and chatterers and meddlers kill many more than doctors."

"You must not trust ministers who are very proud of having clean hands [...]. Thieves there are who rob with their feet, with their mouths, with their ears, with their eyes."

"There are some men who lie even when telling the truth, for they tell it with their lips whilst they lie in their hearts."

"It is most unfortunate that the king should err at all: but if he must err, it is less shocking that he should do so on his own account, rather than by the advice of others."

"The king is a public person, the needs of the realm are his crown. Reigning is not an amusement but a task. A bad king is he who enjoys his State, a good one he who serves it."

"In dangers, the king who looks on orders with his eyes."

"All sinners have less turpitude than the hypocrite, for the former, though they sin against God, do not sin with God or in God, whilst the hypocrite sins against God and also with God, since he takes Him as an instrument of his sin."

"When the devil preaches the world is coming to an end."

"The best sign of a man's goodness is neither to fear nor to owe anything, and the clearest sign of his badness is neither to fear nor to pay."

"From the mouth of a stone serpent there gushes a jet of water."

"The price of freedom is to decide moral and political issues."

"The Basques are Argonauts with very fragile ships."

"But Juan Antonio Villacañas was more than a social poet, or a poet of the universe or a religious poet, or a poet of human themes, or a poet of love. Villacañas, apart from being a generous person, cordial, a poet in the deepest sense of the word, he is, above all, a poet of all times, a poet of yesterday, a poet of tomorrow. A poet who, in life, despite prizes and triumphs, did not get the recognition that other inferior poets had. Especially during his last years “critics” turned their back to him. But he remained faithful to that which was his passion. Poetry, a poetry that has the flow of a river, the serenity of an autumn day, the light that must be in the look of God."

"Whether Villacañas wrote in liras, free verse or whatever form, his poetry constantly springs from a profound search for transcendence and a concern from humanity that can make him to be at once social and spiritual. The vigour of his verses gives them quite often a muscular quality which appears equally in his most earthy poems of indictment or solidarity and in those in which he looks for God, suffers His silence or talks to Him."

"I have an immensity which shivers in the oceans, being, as I am, only a little fountain, small as an eye."

"I come to make song, after the tears. And even if a choir of men sprayed my tongue with silence, poetry will come, with liberating voice, to make my song fall from the trees and reach the most deeply buried abysses of those tears that the child lent me when crying himself into life.Because my infant song is stronger than man’s tears, and it could even conquer me robbing the need of tears from the sun and the wind."

"The earth is brief, as brief as a man’s solemnity. ……… When you, Earth, stop palpitating in my flesh I, flesh, will give you all my earth."

"If pain does not die we shall make it poetry."

"God borders my incredulity constantly. And my incredulity is so much God, that I am almost sure to adore Him."

"Thought is a flower from other worlds, a tale that is torn in each written word. ……………I go outdoors to give rest to the soul’s tired muscles."

"Death is a life of questions that are being buried, and one ends always with doubt tangled in the lips."

"No importa; alguna vez, Dios sabe dónde, nos veremos las caras destapadas."

"Como no esperó nada lo tuvo casi todo."

"Y así, enfermos, ojo alerta y ningún médico admitan; mueran de gorra sin dar un real a la medicina."

"Juan del Valle y Caviedes [was one] of the brightest, most refreshing figures in the infant New World literature of the seventeenth century. [He was] impressive and [a] multi-faceted [talent], ...a biting satirist, as well as a tender lyricist, and [he] gave evidence of sincere and deeply held religious convictions. ...[He was] judged to be among the most outstanding literary figures of [his] age. [His poetry] exhibits a vitality and diversity seldom found in the often excessively ornate and obscure Baroque poetry then in vogue."

"Think deeply about this: what are you going to ask of Christ when you are in his Church? You come stepping in softly, seeking quiet under her vaulted roofs (unless, of course, you come out of mere vanity) in order to forget your problems and preoccupations [-] languidly immersing yourself in the majesty of the sacred chorales and in the aromatic clouds of incense: and then to sleep[-] But this is not the peace of Christ. My peace I give you, my peace I leave you. He said My, which is not the peace of this world. But you want to establish the Church in the peace of the world, and that is why the others, when they come, cannot enter without war cries rising from their overwrought lungs. They rebel, filling the temple with blashemous roars, they eject the terrified faithful, who had been half asleep, they insult or kill the ministers at the altar, knock over the altar itself ,smash the stone saints, burn the church [-] so it is that she once again becomes, for them, the church of the Christ that died on the cross. [-] This time, do not leave her rebuilding to others. Do not wish to put up sturdier walls for these will not give her a better defense [-] Nor should you ask the rich to contribute too much money for the reconstruction, lest the poor, should receive the benefice with mistrust. Let it be the poor who rebuild her, for then they will do so according to their fashion and only in this way will they love her."

"Come in, enter, the door is wide open! It is you yourselves who have opened it with the fire and iron of your hatred:[-] By destroying this church, you have restored the Church, the Church that was founded for you, the poor, the oppressed , the desperate...it is you, with your poverty, your rebellion and your despair, who have rammed down the door, it is you who have breached her stout and solid walls, and you who have re-conquered her. Fire has built, blasphemy has purified, hatred of Christ has returned Christ to his house."

"I had never heard a Mass like that one.. the church vault was split open, the walls were rasped and peeling, the altars were wrecked or had been thrown out; worst of all, that great dark hole at the end, where the high altar had been, the paving hidden beneath the powder and rubble, no pews to sit on, everyone standing or kneeling before a wooden table with a crucifix placed on it, a sunbeam shining sharply down through a gap in the vault and a cloud of flies dancing in the harsh light that illuminated the whole Church and made it seem as though we were hearing Mass in the middle of the street. [-] I had never heard a Mass like that one [-] The bread and the Wine appeared as though they were fresh: the Host appeared to be beating and, in the sunlight, when the Wine was poured into the chalice, it appeared to be blood that was flowing [-] and then the thought, the sentiment occurred to me that Mass should always be heard in this way, in fear and trembling."

"One of the greatest Hebrew poets, Judah ha-Levi was also an anti-rationalist. His chief work, , was a dialogue in defense of Judaism, attempting to show the superiority of to reasoned truth. He pointed out the dependence of Christianity and Islam upon Judaism; he regarded the as possessed of a unique religious sense and Palestine as an unequalled region."

"This means that Jerusalem can only be rebuilt when Israel yearns for it to such an extent that they embrace her stones and dust."

"Divine Providence only gives man as much as he is prepared to receive; if his receptive capacity be small, he obtains little, and much if it be great."

"Thou must not deem it improbable that exalted divine traces should be visible in this material world, when this matter is prepared to receive them. Here are to be found the roots of faith as well as of unbelief""

"According to our view a servant of God is not one who detaches himself from the world, lest he be a burden to it, and it to him; or hates life, which is one of God's bounties granted to him."

"The pious man is nothing but a prince who is obeyed by his senses, and by his mental as well as his physical faculties"

"Thy way of thinking is indeed pleasing to the Creator, but not thy way of acting"

"As regards the Sādōcaeans and Boēthosians, they are the sectarians who are anathemised in our prayer. The followers of Jesus are "the Baptists" who adopted the doctrine of baptism, being baptized in the Jordan.""

"Busque muy en hora buena el mercader nuevos soles; yo conchas y caracoles entre la menuda arena, escuchando a Filomena sobre el chopo de la fuente."

"Andeme yo caliente y ríase la gente."

"La vida es ciervo herido, que las flechas le dan alas."

"Más largo que una noche de Diciembre para un hombre mal casado."

"Mal te perdonarán a ti las horas; las horas que limando están los días, los días que royendo están los años."

"A batallas de amor, campo de pluma."

"Fervent bella horrida, fervent ossibus inclusa fremit et discordibus armis non simplex natura hominis."

"Nunc suscipe, terra, fovendum, gremioque hunc concipe molli. Hominis tibi membra sequestro, generosa et fragmina credo."

"Corde natus ex parentis Ante mundi exordium A et O cognominatus, ipse fons et clausula Omnium quae sunt, fuerunt, quaeque post futura sunt. Saeculorum saeculis."

"Illic, precor, optime ductor, famulam tibi praecipe mentem, genitali in sede sacrari quam liquerat exsul et errans."