Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616) born at Alcalá de Henares, was a writer chiefly known as the author of "Don Quixote". He was distinguished in arms before he became distinguished in letters. He fought in the battle of Lepanto like a very hero, and bore away with him as a "maimed soldier" marks of his share in the struggle. He was sent on a risky embassy, during which he was captured by pirates and remained in their hands five years. Finally, he was ransomed by his family at a cost which beggared them, and it was only when his career as a soldier closed that he took himself to literature. He began as a dramatist before he devoted himself to prose romance. Cervantes wrote no fewer than 30 dramas.

The first part of "Don Quixote", the work which has immortalised his name appeared in 1605, and the second in 1615. It took the world by storm, was translated into all the languages of Europe, but the fortune which was extended to his book did not extend to himself, for he died poor, some ten days before his great contemporary, William Shakespeare. Though carelessly written, "Don Quixote" is one of the few books of all time, and is as fresh to-day as when it was first written.

Wisdom & Quotes

From Don Quixote

• Never meddle with play actors, for they're a favoured race.
• Delay always breeds anger, and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.
• A wise man does not trust all his eggs to one basket.
• Faint heart never won fair lady.
• He that gives quickly gives twice.
• Fear has many eyes and can see things underground.
• There are only two families in the world, my old grandmother used to say, the Haves and the Have-nots.
• Heaven's help is better than early rising.
• An honest man's word is as good as his bond.
• The maxim was already time-honoured.
• Money you know will hide many faults.
• Where there's music, there can be no evil.
• Now blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep! It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak - 'Tis the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap; and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise man even.
• Time ripens all things. No man's born wise.
• That's the nature of women, not to love when we love them, and to love when we love them not.

Ixtilxochitl