Don Quixote

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“Señor Roque, the beginning of health lies in knowing the disease, and in the patient’s willingness to take the medicines the doctor prescribes; your grace is ill, you know your ailment, and heaven, or I should say God, who is our physician, will treat you with the medicines that will cure you, and which tend to cure gradually, not suddenly and miraculously; furthermore, intelligent sinners are closer to reforming than simpleminded ones, and since your grace has demonstrated prudence in your speech, you need only be brave and wait for the illness of your conscience to be healed; if your grace wishes to save time and put yourself without difficulty on the road to salvation, come with me, and I shall teach you how to be a knight errant, a profession in which one undergoes so many trials and misfortunes that, if deemed to be penance, they would bring you to heaven in the wink of an eye.”