Don Quixote

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“What can be better,” said Sancho, “than ‘never put thy thumbs between two back teeth;’ and ‘to “get out of my house” and “what do you want with my wife?” there is no answer;’ and ‘whether the pitcher hits the stove, or the stove the pitcher, it’s a bad business for the pitcher;’ all which fit to a hair? For no one should quarrel with his governor, or him in authority over him, because he will come off the worst, as he does who puts his finger between two back and if they are not back teeth it makes no difference, so long as they are teeth; and to whatever the governor may say there’s no answer, any more than to ‘get out of my house’ and ‘what do you want with my wife?’ and then, as for that about the stone and the pitcher, a blind man could see that. So that he ‘who sees the mote in another’s eye had need to see the beam in his own,’ that it be not said of himself, ‘the dead woman was frightened at the one with her throat cut;’ and your worship knows well that ‘the fool knows more in his own house than the wise man in another’s .’” “Nay, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “the fool knows nothing, either in his own house or in anybody else’s, for no wise structure of any sort can stand on a foundation of folly; but let us say no more about it, Sancho, for if thou governest badly, thine will he the fault and mine the shame; but I comfort myself with having done my duty in advising thee as earnestly and as wisely as I could; and thus I am released from my obligations and my promise....