The 30 Best Don Quixote Quotes That Stand the Test of Time
“Wit and humor do not reside in slow minds.”
Written more than 400 years ago by Miguel de Cervantes, it’s the story of Alonso Quijano, a nobleman so obsessed with reading chivalric romance that he loses his mind.The 30 Best Don Quixote Quotes That Stand the Test of Time He determines to follow him, as a knight-errant. He finds a suitable squire in a peasant named Sancho Panza, and the two set off on one of the greatest missionary adventures ever penned.
Don Quixote is one of the most translated and read books IN HISTORY, cites, quotes this book MAN OH MAN! Cervantes’s writing has also inspired books such as The Three Musketeers and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. We even gave the English language phrases like “quixotic” and “tilting at windmills” that are still in use. These words have entered the lexicon of daily speech in America. if you are quotes lover and went to read more quotes than visit quotes slide.
Don Quixote
Amazon Apple Books Barnes & Noble
Dreams and Imagination: Famous Don Quixote Quotes About Pursuing the Impossible
1. “To dream the impossible dream, that is my quest.”
2. “When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!”
3. “Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
4. “I do not deny that what happened to us is a thing worth laughing at. But it is not worth telling, for not everyone is sufficiently intelligent to be able to see things from the right point of view.”
5. “The most perceptive character in a play is the fool, because the man who wishes to seem simple cannot possibly be a simpleton.”
6. “Translating from one language to another, unless it is from Greek and Latin, the queens of all languages, is like looking at Flemish tapestries from the wrong side, for although the figures are visible, they are covered by threads that obscure them, and cannot be seen with the smoothness and color of the right side.”
Life and Wisdom: Best Don Quixote Quotes About Living Well
7. “I’ve always heard the old folks say that if you don’t know how to enjoy good luck when it comes, you shouldn’t complain if it passes you by.”
8. “Take my advice and live for a long, long time. Because the maddest thing a man can do in this life is to let himself die.”
9. “Hunger is the best sauce in the world.”
10. “There is a remedy for everything except death.”
11. “I have never died all my life.”
12. “A tooth is much more to be prized than a diamond.”
Truth and Virtue: Philosophical Quotes from Don Quixote
13. “The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.”
14. “For neither good nor evil can last for ever; and so it follows that as evil has lasted a long time, good must now be close at hand.”
15. “Virtue is persecuted by the wicked more than it is loved by the good.”
16. “It is not the responsibility of knights errant to discover whether the afflicted, the enchained and the oppressed whom they encounter on the road are reduced to these circumstances and suffer this distress for their vices, or for their virtues: the knight’s sole responsibility is to succour them as people in need, having eyes only for their sufferings, not for their misdeeds.”
17. “It is one thing to write as poet and another to write as a historian: the poet can recount or sing about things not as they were, but as they should have been, and the historian must write about them not as they should have been, but as they were, without adding or subtracting anything from the truth.”
18. “Thou hast seen nothing yet.”
Courage and Patience: Quotes About Bravery and Madness
19. “It’s up to brave hearts, sir, to be patient when things are going badly, as well as being happy when they’re going well.”
20. “Where there is great love there is often little display of it.”
21. “There were no embraces, because where there is great love there is often little display of it.”
22. “What is more dangerous than to become a poet? which is, as some say, an incurable and infectious disease.”
23. “Where there’s music there can be no evil.”
24. “Don Quixote is so crazy that he is sure no author could have invented him.”
Books and Reading: Wisdom from Cervantes About Literature
25. “There is no book so bad…that it does not have something good in it.”
26. “Wit and humor do not reside in slow minds.”
27. “The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.”
28. “For neither good nor evil can last for ever; and so it follows that as evil has lasted a long time, good must now be close at hand.”
29. “Translating from one language to another, unless it is from Greek and Latin, the queens of all languages, is like looking at Flemish tapestries from the wrong side.”
30. “Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.” if you want to read about Funny Confucius Sayings than visit this page.
Why These Don Quixote Quotes Still Matter Today
Classic literature quotes still make sense today because they touch on eternal human experiences. The best quotes from classic novels survive because they tell truths that remain unchanged by fad or technology.
Cervantes wrote about the idealism vs. realism in a way that still resonates. We continue to grapple with dreams and reality. Yet we wonder still about madness and sanity. We continue to argue about truth and lie. The Spanish classic poses questions every generation must answer for itself.
It has now become permanently incarnated in our language with the quixotic meaning. When we call somebody quixotic, we are alluding to this character in 17th-century literature. That says something about genuine cultural impact. There are not a lot of books that manage to do what it’s done. Cervantes’ literary legacy has inspired many writers who followed him. if you went to read Celebration of Life Quotes than visit this page.
Experience the Full Journey of This Literary Masterpiece
These 30 inspirational quotes from Don Quixote barely scratch the surface of this incredible novel. The complete novel has hundreds more moments of wisdom, humor and moral insight. In every page there are fresh truths and memorable remarks of life.
If you’ve been daunted by the length, begin with a good translation. The Spanish literature has never been more easily reached than in modern editions. The pages turn, as many readers note, once you start. It moves you along with the real adventure and unexpected comedy of a good story.
Don Quixote has been a source of literary inspiration to film, theater. Knowledge of this classic literature makes sense out of a quantazillion other books. The knight-errant archetype is all over modern day storytelling. From comic books to fantasy novels, the shadow of Don Quixote falls across all of Western literature.
These lines from Miguel de Cervantes explain why the read has been so popular among readers. What they reveal are depth, wit, compassion and wisdom. They make us laugh and think. They subvert our understanding of what is real and what is not.
