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‘Naked I was born, and I’m naked now: I haven’t lost or gained a thing.’”
May your most noble adventures be nothing but misadventures, your pleasures, nothing but dreams, your courage, gone and forgotten.
“Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts heaven gave to men;
“Señor Don Juan, why does your grace want us to read this nonsense? Whoever has read the first part of the history of Don Quixote of La Mancha cannot possibly derive any pleasure from reading this second part.”
Sancho finished eating, and leaving the innkeeper looking like an X,
I don’t print my books to achieve fame in the world, because I’m already well-known for my work; I want profit: without it, fame isn’t worth a thing.”
“There is a remedy for everything except death,”
“Oh, Señor,” said Don Antonio, “may God forgive you for the harm you have done to the entire world in wishing to restore the sanity of the most amusing madman in it! Don’t you see, Señor, that the benefit caused by the sanity of Don Quixote cannot be as great as the pleasure produced by his madness?
I’ve heard that the woman they call Fortune is drunken, and fickle, and most of all blind, so she doesn’t see what she’s doing and doesn’t know who she’s throwing down or raising up.”
“It seems to me,” responded Sancho, “that your grace is like the pot calling the kettle black. You reprove me for saying proverbs, and your grace strings them together two at a time.”
Don Quixote fulfilled his obligations to nature by sleeping his first sleep,1 but not giving way to his second, unlike Sancho, who never had a second sleep because his sleep lasted from nightfall until morning, proving he had a strong constitution and few cares.
Mine is a novel state: I go on living, and constantly die.3
all the problems afflicting this maiden are born of idleness, and the remedy lies in honest and constant labor.
stay in your house, tend to your estate, go to confession often, favor the poor, and let it be on my soul if that does you any harm.”
My judgment is restored, free and clear of the dark shadows of ignorance imposed on it by my grievous and constant reading of detestable books of chivalry. I now recognize their absurdities and deceptions, and my sole regret is that this realization has come so late it does not leave me time to compensate by reading other books that can be a light to the soul.
I am no longer Don Quixote of La Mancha but Alonso Quixano,
