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Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness — its opposite — never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes.

— Miguel de Cervantes El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) (1605)

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Source: Ch. 38.
Work: El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha), 1605
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

More by Miguel de Cervantes

I must speak the truth, and nothing but the truth.

El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) (1605)

Can we ever have too much of a good thing?

El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) (1605)

It is a common proverb, beauteous princess, that diligence is the mother of good fortune.

El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) (1605)

There is a time for some things, and a time for all things; a time for great things, and a time for small things.

El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) (1605)

"There is no book so bad," said the bachelor, "but something good may be found in it."

El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) (1605)

You are a devil at everything, and there is no kind of thing in the 'versal world but what you can turn your hand to.

El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) (1605)

Every man is as Heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.

El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) (1605)

A good repentance is the best medicine for diseases of the soul.

Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (The Travails of Persiles and Sigismunda) (1617)

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Topics

Luck

More quotes by Miguel de Cervantes

There's not the least thing can be said or done, but people will talk and find fault.

El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) (1605)

Fear is sharp-sighted, and can see things underground, and much more in the skies.

El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) (1605)

Take care, Your Worship, those things over there are not giants but windmills.

El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) (1605)

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

El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) (1605)

By a small sample we may judge of the whole piece.

El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha) (1605)

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In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.

Louis Pasteur

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.

William Shakespeare Twelfth Night (1601)

O Fortune, cruellest of heavenly powers,
Why make such game of this poor life of ours?

Horace Satires (-35)

Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.

Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Miguel de Cervantes (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.