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*Repose, a quiet corner,
fragrant fields, cloudless skies, murmuring brooks, spiritual calm---all
contribute their share in making the most barren of muses teem and bring
forth to the world such offspring as will fill it with wonder and
delight.
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-Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Don Quixote of La Mancha, 1605
Prologue
Walter Starkie, trans., 1964
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*In short, he so immersed
himself in those romances that he spent whole days and nights over his
books; and thus with little sleeping and much reading, his brains dried up
to such a degree that he lost the use of his reason.
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-Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Don Quixote of La Mancha, 1605
Part I, Chapter I, "Which tells of the quality and manner of life of the
famous gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha"
Walter Starkie, trans.
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*The affairs of war are,
above all others, subject to continual change.
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-Don Quixote, a character in Miguel de
Cervantes Saavedra's
Don Quixote of La Mancha, 1605
Part I, Ch. VIII, "Of the valiant Don Quixote's success in the terrifying
and never-before-imagined adventure of the windmills, with other events
worthy of happy remembrance"
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*It is neither just nor
proper to carry out a man's bequests when his orders stray from all
reason. . . .
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-Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Don Quixote of La Mancha, 1605
Part I, Chapter XIII, "In which is concluded the story of the shepherdess
Marcela, with other matters. . ."
Walter Starkie, trans.
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~Liberty, Sancho, my friend,
is one of the most precious gifts that Heaven has bestowed on mankind; all
the treasures the earth contains within its bosom or the ocean within its
depths cannot be compared with it. For liberty, as well as for honor, man
ought to risk even his life, and he should reckon captivity the greatest
evil life can bring.
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-Don Quixote, the hero in Miguel de Cervantes
Saavedra's
Don Quixote of La Mancha, 1615
Part II, Chapter LVIII, "Which tells of how adventures poured on Don Quixote
so thick and fast that they gave no room to one another. . ."
Walter Starkie, trans., 1964
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*When a poet is poor, half
of his divine fruits and fancies miscarry by reason of his anxious cares to
win his daily bread.
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-Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Postscript to his
Journey to Parnassus, 1614
Walter Starkie, trans.
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A proverb is a short sentence based on long
experience.
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-Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
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A jest that gives pain is no jest.
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-Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
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Drink moderately, for drunkeness neither keeps
a secret, nor observes a promise.
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-Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
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History is something sacred because it is true.
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-Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
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Home
(This is a test effort. The text is copyrighted, I took it from Biography.com. This
will not be the final version of the text I use.)
Writer of Don Quixote, born in Alcalá de Henares, Spain. His first
major work was the Galatea, a pastoral romance (1585), and he wrote many plays, only
two of which have survived. He became a tax collector in Granada (1594), but was
imprisoned for failing to make up the sum due to the treasury. Tradition maintains that
he wrote Don Quixote in prison at Argamasilla in La Mancha. When the book came out
(1605), it was hugely popular. He wrote the second part in 1615, after several years of
writing plays and short novels.
