The Dialogue of the Dogs Quotes

“It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.”
― Miguel De Cervantes, The Dialogue of the Dogs

“And yet the power of thought has always been so far beyond us that the main difference between men and animals is: they can think and we can’t.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Dialogue of the Dogs

“los cuentos, unos encierran y tienen la gracia en ellos mismos, otros en el modo de contarlos; quiero decir, que algunos hay que, aunque se cuenten sin preámbulos y ornamentos de palabras, dan contento; otros hay que es menester vestirlos de palabras, y con demostraciones del rostro y de las manos, y con mudar la voz, se hacen algo de nonada, y de flojos y desmayados, se vuelven agudos y gustosos, y no se te olvide este advertimiento, para aprovecharte de él en lo que te queda por decir.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, El coloquio de los perros

“whose generous hands never hold back. I disagree with the saying “The hard-hearted give more than the poor,” —as if a hard-hearted, greedy man would ever give anything—but a generous but penniless man at least gives good wishes when they’re all he’s got.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Dialogue of the Dogs

“They just want to pile up and hoard money, and to get it they work almost without eating. Once a coin strays into their clutches, no matter how small, they condemn it to life imprisonment and eternal darkness. In this way, always acquiring and never spending, they’re amassing Spain’s biggest fortune. They are its strongbox, its vault, its guardians and custodians. They gather everything, hide everything, and swallow everything.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Dialogue of the Dogs

“Despite all this, we stayed in the hospital that night, and when the old woman found me alone on the grounds she asked, “Is it you, Montiel? Is it you, perchance, my boy?” I lifted my head and looked up at her for a long time. When she saw this, she bent down to me with tears in her eyes and threw her arms around my neck. She would’ve kissed me on the lips if I’d let her, but that was disgusting, and I wouldn’t stand for it.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Dialogue of the Dogs

“Today they make a law and tomorrow they break it, and maybe it’s better that way. After all, no sooner does somebody promise to change his habits than he immediately falls into worse ones. It’s one thing to extol discipline and another to exercise it, and there’s a vast chasm between the saying and the doing.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Dialogue of the Dogs

“In Roman times everybody spoke Latin as their mother tongue, yet there must’ve been some morons even then. Speaking Latin didn’t absolve them of stupidity.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Dialogue of the Dogs

“When I found my comprehension somewhat improved by this habit, I determined, as if I already knew how to talk even then, to take advantage of this exercise whenever I could—but not as some ignoramuses do. There are those who interlard their conversations from time to time with some brief, pithy Latin phrase, giving strangers to understand that they’re great Latinists when they hardly know how to decline a noun or conjugate a verb.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Dialogue of the Dogs

“As I said, I went back to my dog’s rations, and to the bones that a household serving slave threw me, and even those I had to fight over with two spotted cats. Free and easy, they thought nothing of snatching whatever fell outside the radius of my chain.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Dialogue of the Dogs

“So I pretended humility whenever I wanted to enter the service of a household, having first cased the place to ascertain that it could maintain and accommodate a large dog. Then I parked myself by the door and, when an apparent stranger came up, I barked at him. The lord of the house would come out and I’d lower my head, wag my tail, go up to him, and lick his brogans with my tongue.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Dialogue of the Dogs

“How did you usually find a master? Because the way things are, it’s certainly tough nowadays to find a good one. The lords of the earth are very different from the Lord of heaven.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Dialogue of the Dogs

“That way, when the wolf came, I’d stand a better chance of catching him. Week in and week out they’d raised the alarm, and one sable-black night I lay in ambush for those wolves against whom I’d failed to protect the flock. While the other dogs tore out ahead of me, I lay doggo behind a bush and watched two shepherds mark out one of the best lambs in the fold and kill it—and in such a way that in the morning, everyone would think the wolf had done it.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Dialogue of the Dogs

“There I was, fat and happy with my second master and my new responsibilities. I watched the fold carefully and diligently except at siesta time, which I used to spend in the shade of some tree or bank, or a ravine or an orchard, next to one of the creeks that ran all through there. I didn’t pass these hours of tranquility idly, either. I occupied my memory by remembering many things, especially the life my old master and everyone like him led in the slaughterhouse, always jumping at the peevish pleasures of their mistresses.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Dialogue of the Dogs

“Berganza, I’m not shocked that—since there’s good and bad in all of us—we get the hang of evil in no time.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Dialogue of the Dogs

“So suddenly? It must’ve been for love. That love is strong medicine, and often carries a strong chaser of regret.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Dialogue of the Dogs

“What’s this then?” the friend asked, crossing himself as if he had seen a ghost. “Are you really Ensign Campuzano? Am I really seeing you around here? I thought you were in Flanders making free with your pikestaff, not hobbling along here with your cutlass for a walking stick. How pale and scrawny you look!”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The Dialogue of the Dogs

“CIPIÓN Con brevedad te la diré. Este nombre se compone de dos nombres griegos, que son, filos y sofia: filos quiere decir amor, y sofia la ciencia: así que filosofía significa amor de la ciencia, y filósofo, amador de la ciencia.

BERGANZA Mucho sabes, Cipión; ¿quién diablos te enseñó a ti nombres griegos?”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, El Coloquio de Los Perros

“LOS PERROS DE MAHUDE”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, El Coloquio De Los Perros