Sancho Panza Quotes

“All I know is that while I’m asleep, I’m never afraid, and I have no hopes, no struggles, no glories — and bless the man who invented sleep, a cloak over all human thought, food that drives away hunger, water that banishes thirst, fire that heats up cold, chill that moderates passion, and, finally, universal currency with which all things can be bought, weight and balance that brings the shepherd and the king, the fool and the wise, to the same level. There’s only one bad thing about sleep, as far as I’ve ever heard, and that is that it resembles death, since there’s very little difference between a sleeping man and a corpse.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“A thought expressed is a falsehood." In poetry what is not said and yet gleams through the beauty of the symbol, works more powerfully on the heart than that which is expressed in words. Symbolism makes the very style, the very artistic substance of poetry inspired, transparent, illuminated throughout like the delicate walls of an alabaster amphora in which a flame is ignited.

Characters can also serve as symbols. Sancho Panza and Faust, Don Quixote and Hamlet, Don Juan and Falstaff, according to the words of Goethe, are "schwankende Gestalten."

Apparitions which haunt mankind, sometimes repeatedly from age to age, accompany mankind from generation to generation. It is impossible to communicate in any words whatsoever the idea of such symbolic characters, for words only define and restrict thought, but symbols express the unrestricted aspect of truth.

Moreover we cannot be satisfied with a vulgar, photographic exactness of experimental photoqraphv. We demand and have premonition of, according to the allusions of Flaubert, Maupassant, Turgenev, Ibsen, new and as yet undisclosed worlds of impressionability. This thirst for the unexperienced, in pursuit of elusive nuances, of the dark and unconscious in our sensibility, is the characteristic feature of the coming ideal poetry. Earlier Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe said that the beautiful must somewhat amaze, must seem unexpected and extraordinary. French critics more or less successfully named this feature - impressionism.

Such are the three major elements of the new art: a mystical content, symbols, and the expansion of artistic impressionability.

No positivistic conclusions, no utilitarian computation, but only a creative faith in something infinite and immortal can ignite the soul of man, create heroes, martyrs and prophets... People have need of faith, they need inspiration, they crave a holy madness in their heroes and martyrs.

("On The Reasons For The Decline And On The New Tendencies In Contemporary Literature")”
― Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Silver Age of Russian Culture

“Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self. […] If the same person were to write his autobiography twice, first in one mode and then in the other, the two accounts would be so different that it would be hard to believe that they referred to the same person. In one he would appear as an obsessed creature, a passionate Knight forever serenading Faith or Beauty, humorless and over-life-size; in the other as coolly detached, full of humor and self-mockery, lacking in a capacity for affection, easily bored and smaller than life-size. As Don Quixote seen by Sancho Panza, he never prays; as Sancho Panza seen by Don Quixote, he never giggles.”
― W.H. Auden, The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays

“After I came down from the sky, and after I looked at the earth from that great height and saw how small it was, the burning desire I had to be a governor cooled a little; where’s the greatness in ruling a mustard seed, or the dignity or pride in governing half a dozen men the size of hazel nuts?”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

“-Teresa dice -dijo Sancho- que ate bien mi dedo con vuestra merced, y que hablen cartas y callen barbas, porque quien destaja no baraja, pues más vale un toma que dos te daré. Y yo digo que el consejo de la mujer es poco, y el que no lo toma es loco.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

“Senyorlar, izin verin de geçeyim, valiliği bırakıp eskiden olduğu gibi, özgürlüğüme geri dönüyorum. Çünkü bir insan mutlu olmak istiyorsa, özgür olmalıdır. Şunu anladım ki ne valilik yapabilirim ne de adayı savunabilirim, bu işler için yaratılmamışım. Yasalar koyup düzeni sağlamak, savunma planları hazırlamaktan çok, ekin ekmeyi, toprak bellemeyi ve asma budamayı beceririm. Çapayı valilik asasından daha iyi kullanırım. Ayrıca çeşit çeşit lezzetli yemek yemek için saygısız bir doktordan izin almaktansa, istediğim zaman ve dilediğim gibi kuru ekmek yemeyi tercih ederim. Bir köylünün gönül rahatlığıyla içtiği çorba sizin yemeklerinizden iyidir. Yaz sıcağında hiçbir şey düşünmeden gölgede uyumayı, adayı yönetmek sorunlarıyla dolu bir kafayla, keten çarşaflar ve ipekli örtülerle hazırlanmış lüks bir karyolada geceyi göz kırpmadan geçirmeye tercih ederim. "
"Sevgili Sancho, Tanrı tarafından insanlara bahşedilmiş en büyük nimet, hiç şüphesiz özgürlük. Dünyada kazanılan hiçbir servet, insanların uğrunda can verdiği özgürlüklerle kıyaslanamaz...Özgürlüğün en büyük düşmanı esarettir. Dük hazretlerinin şatosundaki bolluk ve refahı, şerefimize çekilen o muhteşem ziyafetleri, bize gösterilen saygıyı gördün. ama bütün bunlara rağmen kendimi rahat hissetmiyordum; çünkü gördüğümüz iyilikler serbestçe hareket etmemize engel olan bir bağdır. Kuru ekmekten başka bir şeyi olmayıp da yalnız Tanrı'ya karşı minnettar olan bir kişi daha mutlu olur." dedi.”
― Cervantes, Don Kişot

“Le lotte dal basso sono e saranno sempre senza speranza. La visione di un mondo pacifico in cui
tutto è condiviso e i rapporti tra le persone non sono governati da semplici rapporti di forza è una visione del tutto utopistica e irreale. Del resto non importa che l’unico anello sia al dito di Sauron o a quello di un hobbit sfigato di nome Smeagol. Rimane il potere e quelli che lo subiscono. Chi domina e chi viene dominato. Chi prospera e chi decade. Ogni rivoluzione del popolo ghigliottina i suoi Danton e i suoi Robespierre. Ogni rivoluzione annega nel sangue i suoi Marat. Ogni rivoluzione degenera in un impero di Napoleone. Non che questo cambi le cose. Se vivi in uno Stato fascista
che dice di non esserlo. Se perdi il diritto alla casa. Se subisci un’economia delirante che ti uccide con le nocività che produce.
Se lavori per finanziare una classe dirigente che guarda solo se stessa. Se non vivi più, per lavorare e mantenere una famiglia, come uno schiavo... Come è possibile restare a guardare? Come non comprenderlo? Come continuare a subirlo? Se non sei un uomo stacchi il cervello e smetti di pensare. Se sei un uomo ti incazzi e lotti. Come Don Chisciotte con i mulini a vento. I Sancho Panza di questo mondo, che lottano per opportunismo e senza ideali, non lo comprendono e mai lo comprenderanno. Lottare è inevitabile e nobilitante. Nonostante non ci sia speranza. Lottare senza la speranza è l’unica cosa che ci è rimasta. I Don Chisciotte
continueranno a farlo perché lottare li fa sentire vivi e liberi; e quando abbatteranno i mulini a vento i Sancho Panza di questo mondo se ne prendereanno il merito e saranno tiranni al loro
posto.”
― Stefano Zorba, Mi innamoravo di tutto: Storia di un dissidente

“He got himself dressed at last, and then, slowly, for he was
sorely bruised and could not go fast, he proceeded to the stable,
followed by all who were present, and going up to Dapple embraced
him and gave him a loving kiss on the forehead, and said to him, not
without tears in his eyes, "Come along, comrade and friend and partner
of my toils and sorrows; when I was with you and had no cares to
trouble me except mending your harness and feeding your little
carcass, happy were my hours, my days, and my years; but since I
left you, and mounted the towers of ambition and pride, a thousand
miseries, a thousand troubles, and four thousand anxieties have
entered into my soul;”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

“In this strain did Sancho bewail himself, and his ass listened to
him, but answered him never a word, such was the distress and
anguish the poor beast found himself in. At length, after a night
spent in bitter moanings and lamentations, day came, and by its
light Sancho perceived that it was wholly impossible to escape out
of that pit without help, and he fell to bemoaning his fate and
uttering loud shouts to find out if there was anyone within hearing;
but all his shouting was only crying in the wilderness, for there
was not a soul anywhere in the neighbourhood to hear him, and then
at last he gave himself up for dead. Dapple was lying on his back, and
Sancho helped him to his feet, which he was scarcely able to keep; and
then taking a piece of bread out of his alforjas which had shared
their fortunes in the fall, he gave it to the ass, to whom it was
not unwelcome, saying to him as if he understood him, "With bread
all sorrows are less.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

“I'm a peaceful man, sir, meek and mild, and I can overlook any insult, because I've got a wife to support and children to bring up . . . In no way am I going to draw my sword against anyone, peasant or knight, and I hereby, before God my Maker, forgive all affronts that anybody ever has offered me or will offer me, whether the person who has offered them, offers them, or will offer them is of high or low birth, rich or poor, a gentleman or a commoner, not excepting any estate or condition whatsoever.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

“Without making any boast of it Sancho Panza succeeded in the course of years, by feeding him a great number of romances of chivalry and adventure in the evening and night hours, in so diverting from himself his demon, whom he later called Don Quixote, that this demon thereupon set out, uninhibited, on the maddest exploits, which, however, for the lack of a preordained object, which should have been Sancho Panza himself, harmed nobody. A free man, Sancho Panza philosophically followed Don Quixote on his crusades, perhaps out of a sense of responsibility and had of them a great and edifying entertainment to the end of his days.”
― Franz Kafka