Quotes from Don Quixote

Quotations follow the Edith Grossman translation (Ecco, 2003) — our recommended edition.

1. 2

   Fortune is arranging matters for us better than we could have shaped our desires ourselves, for look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants present themselves.

2. 3

   Look, your worship, what we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstone go.

3. 4

   Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be.

4. 5

   Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.

5. 6

   I was mad, now I am in my senses; I was Don Quixote of La Mancha, I am now, as I said, Alonso Quixano the Good.

6. 7

   In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion that ever madman in this world hit upon.

7. 8

   what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits.

8. 9

   The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

9. 10

   When thou art at Rome, do as they do at Rome.

10. 11

    The best sauce in the world is hunger.

11. 12

    Liberty, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that heaven has bestowed upon men; no treasures that the earth contains or the sea conceals can be compared with it.

12. 13

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

13. 14

    The brave man carves out his fortune, and every man is the son of his own works.

14. 15

    Now, blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep! It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; it is meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot.

15. 16

    The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.

16. 17

    Patience, and shuffle the cards.

17. 18

    There is no book so bad but it has something good in it.

18. 19

    Let every man mind his own business, and look to his own pot.

19. 20

    The pen is the tongue of the soul; as are the thoughts engendered there, so will be the things written.

20. 21

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

21. 22

    Fortune leaves always some door open to come at a remedy.

22. 23

    I know who I am, and I know that I may be not only those I have named, but all the Twelve Peers of France and even all the Nine Worthies.

23. 24

    In last year's nests there are no birds this year.

24. 25

    My reason is now free and clear, rid of the dark shadows of ignorance that my unhappy constant study of those detestable books of chivalry cast over it.