Part 13 (2/2)

”By these rough paths of toil and pain The immortal seats of bliss we gain, Denied to those who heedless stray In tempting pleasure's flowery way.”

Fast bind, fast find.

He who shuffles is not he who cuts.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Though there is little in a woman's advice, yet he that won't take it is not over-wise.

We are all mortal: here to-day and gone to-morrow.

The lamb goes to the spit as soon as the sheep.

No man in this world can promise himself more hours of life than G.o.d is pleased to grant him; because death if deaf, and when he knocks at the door of life is always in a hurry, and will not be detained either by fair means or force, by sceptres or mitres, as the report goes, and as we have often heard it declared from the pulpit.

The hen sits, if it be but upon one egg.

Many littles make a mickle, and he that is getting aught is losing naught.

While there are peas in the dove-cote, it shall never want pigeons.

A good reversion is better than bad possession, and a good claim better than bad pay.

The bread eaten, the company broke up.

A man must be a man, and a woman a woman.

Nothing inspires a knight-errant with so much valor as the favor of his mistress.

O envy! thou root of infinite mischief and canker-worm of virtue! The commission of all other vices, Sancho, is attended with some sort of delight; but envy produces nothing in the heart that harbors it but rage, rancor, and disgust.

The love of fame is one of the most active principles in the human breast.

Let us keep our holy days in peace, and not throw the rope after the bucket.

”And now pray tell me which is the most difficult, to raise a dead man to life or to slay a giant?”

”The answer is very obvious,” answered Don Quixote; ”to raise a dead man.”

”There I have caught you!” quoth Sancho. ”Then his fame who raises the dead, gives sight to the blind, makes the lame walk, and cures the sick; who has lamps burning near his grave, and good Christians always in his chapels, adoring his relics upon their knees,--his fame, I say, shall be greater both in this world and the next than that which all the heathen emperors and knights-errant in the world ever had or ever shall have.”

”I grant it,” answered Don Quixote.

”Then,” replied Sancho, ”the bodies and relics of saints have this power and grace, and these privileges, or how do you call them, and with the license of our holy mother church have their lamps, winding-sheets, crutches, pictures, perukes, eyes, and legs, whereby they increase people's devotion and spread abroad their own Christian fame. Kings themselves carry the bodies or relics of saints upon their shoulders, kiss the fragments of their bones, and adorn their chapels and most favorite altars with them.”

”Certainly, but what wouldst thou infer from all this, Sancho?” quoth Don Quixote.

<script>