Sancho Panza Quotes

If you look into your own mind, which are you, Don Quixote or Sancho Panza?" he had asked in the great essay on dirty postcards. "Almost certainly you are both. There is one part of you that wishes to be a hero or a saint, but another part of you is a little fat man who sees very clearly the advantages of staying alive with a whole skin. He is your unofficial self, the voice of the belly protesting against the soul. ~ George Orwell

Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza. ~ Franz Kafka

At this point they came in sight of thirty forty windmills that there are on plain, and as soon as Don Quixote saw them he said to his squire, "Fortune is arranging matters for us better than we could have shaped our desires ourselves, for look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes; for this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth." "What giants?" said Sancho Panza. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

The Pepto?" I asked.
"The Pepto," he sighed and read the label. "Yes, the Pepto. This, yes. The candies. They're in here. I found them, yes. I found them here. You. You were sleeping. I found these. They're yours, yes? I want them. If I can have them. These. These Pepto. Oh… yes. If I can have them I'd be grateful, yes… I'd follow you. I'd follow you now until the day you die. From now until then, yes. I'd follow you and I would be your one true compatriot. The Don Quixote to your Sancho Panza, the Batman to your Robin, the Huckleberry Finn to your Nigger Jim. Yours. You. And… hm… yes. From then on I'd do what you ask of me. As your one true ally to do what you need. I'd be the best friend you have. Best. All I ask for, to be yours until forever, is that you bestow upon me these delightful morsels I have found of yours for my consumptive pleasure."
"Yes," I said, not thinking twice. "Take it. Eat'em."
"Eat'em, great," he said. "Yes. A strange name, but I like it. That's what you will call me then. Eat'em. Thank you for this. ~ Chase Webster

The adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, a team generally regarded as seeking justice, can be compared to the adventures of Rex Stout's two most famous characters, Nero Wolf and Archie Goodwin. ~ James Grady

Senor Sancho Panza must know that we too have enchanters here that are well disposed to us, and tell us what goes on in the world, plainly and distinctly, without subterfuge or deception; and believe me, Sancho, that agile country lass was and is Dulcinea del Toboso, who is as much enchanted as the mother that bore her; and when we least expect it, we shall see her in her own proper form, and then Sancho will be disabused of the error he is under at present. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

In the meanwhile Don Quixote was bringing his powers of persuasion to bear upon a farmer who lived near by, a good man-if this title may be applied to one who is poor-but with very few wits in his head. The short of it is, by pleas and promises, he got the hapless rustic to agree to ride forth with him and serve him as his squire. Among other things, Don Quixote told him that he ought to be more than willing to go, because no telling what adventure might occur which would win them an island, and then he (the farmer) would be left to be the governor of it. As a result of these and other similar assurances, Sancho Panza forsook his wife and children and consented to take upon himself the duties of squire to his neighbor. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Don Quixote could never manage without his patient servant Sancho Panza. ~ Nicholas Tucker

We find that at present the human race is divided into one wise man, nine knaves, and ninety fools out of every hundred. That is, by an optimistic observer. The nine knaves assemble themselves under the banner of the most knavish among them, and become 'politicians'; the wise man stands out, because he knows himself to be hopelessly outnumbered, and devotes himself to poetry, mathematics, or philosophy; while the ninety fools plod off under the banners of the nine villains, according to fancy, into the labyrinths of chicanery, malice and warfare. It is pleasant to have command, observes Sancho Panza, even over a flock of sheep, and that is why the politicians raise their banners. It is, moreover, the same thing for the sheep whatever the banner. If it is democracy, then the nine knaves will become members of parliament; if fascism, they will become party leaders; if communism, commissars. Nothing will be different, except the name. The fools will be still fools, the knaves still leaders, the results still exploitation. As for the wise man, his lot will be much the same under any ideology. Under democracy he will be encouraged to starve to death in a garret, under fascism he will be put in a concentration camp, under communism he will be liquidated. ~ T.H. White

Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self. ~ W. H. Auden

Destiny guides our fortunes more favorably than we could have expected. Look there, Sancho Panza, my friend, and see those thirty or so wild giants, with whom I intend to do battle and kill each and all of them, so with their stolen booty we can begin to enrich ourselves. This is nobel, righteous warfare, for it is wonderfully useful to God to have such an evil race wiped from the face of the earth."
"What giants?" Asked Sancho Panza.
"The ones you can see over there," answered his master, "with the huge arms, some of which are very nearly two leagues long."
"Now look, your grace," said Sancho, "what you see over there aren't giants, but windmills, and what seems to be arms are just their sails, that go around in the wind and turn the millstone."
"Obviously," replied Don Quijote, "you don't know much about adventures. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Between Don Quixote the mystic and Sancho Panza the sensualist there is no middle ground. ~ John Dos Passos

The reader of Plato joins Socrates in inquiry, as Sancho Panza joined Don Quixote, for adventures of the mind. And although there is a deep consent, like a fire kindled deep in the mind, there is always a tension between the squire and the knight-errant, the little man with proverbs for wisdom riding on a donkey and the knight with the piercing eye riding on a horse, those two parts of each human soul. The intellectual destiny that each of us has depends upon who gets the upper hand, knight or squire. ~ Scott M. Buchanan

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

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

At this the duchess, laughing all the while, said: Sancho Panza is right in all he has said, and will be right in all he shall say ... ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Most religion-mongers have bated their paradises with a bit of toasted cheese. They have tempted the body with large promises of possessions in their transmortal El Dorado. Sancho Panza will not quit his chimney-corner, but under promise of imaginary islands to govern. ~ James Russell Lowell

Sancho Panza by name is my own self, if I was not changed in my cradle. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

As Sancho said, money does not buy happiness but it does buy nearly everything else. ~ Isabel Allende

As regards your government of yourself and your household, Sancho, my first piece of advice is to be clean and to cut your fingernails, and not to let them grow long, as some people do, moved by ignorance to believe that long nails make their hand look beautiful, as if those appendages, those excrescences that they leave uncut have any right to be called fingernails at all, because they are more like talons of a kestrel: a monstrous and filthy abuse. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

By God and upon my conscience", said the devil, "I never observed it, for my mind is occupied with so many different things that I was forgetting the main thing I came about." "This demon must be an honest fellow and a good Christian," said Sancho; "for if he wasn't he wouldn't swear by God and his conscience; I feel sure now there must be good souls even in hell itself. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Take care, Sancho," said Samson; "honours change manners, and perhaps when you find yourself a governor you won't know the mother that bore you. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

He tried his luck again, and things went so smoothly that with no more noise or disturbance than the last time, he found himself rid of the burden that had caused him so much grief. But since Don Quixote had a sense of smell as acute as his hearing, and Sancho was joined so closely to him, and the vapors rose up almost in a straight line, some unavoidably reached his nostrils, and as soon as they did he came to the assistance of his nostrils and squeezed them closed between two fingers, and in a somewhat nasal voice, he said: It seems to me, Sancho, that you are very frightened. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

I have always heard, Sancho, that doing good to base fellows is like throwing water into the sea. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

"He preaches well that lives well," quoth Sancho, "that's all the divinity I can understand." ~ Miguel De Cervantes

Facts, my dear Sancho, are the enemy of truth. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

You should know, Sancho, that a man is not worth more than any other if he does not do more than any other. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Do we know exactly who we are? The more urgently we quest for our authentic selves, the more they tend to recede. The Knight and Sancho, as the great work closes, know exactly who they are, not so much by their adventures as through their marvelous conversations, be they quarrels or exchanges of insights. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

I have always heard it said, Sancho, that to do good to boors is to throw water into the sea. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

"From what I have seen here," remarked Sancho, "justice is so good a thing that even robbers find it necessary." ~ Miguel De Cervantes

All the vices, Sancho, bring some kind of pleasure with them; but envy brings nothing but irritation, bitterness, and rage. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

By the one God, Sancho, no more proverbs. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

This happened not once, but twice - first with Martin Heidegger's magnum opus, Being and Time, and then with his pupil Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness. (We discuss Sartre in the next section.) ~ Christopher Panza

And as the wicked are always ungrateful, and necessity leads to evil doing, and immediate advantage overcomes all considerations of the future, Ginés, who was neither grateful nor well-principled, made up his mind to steal Sancho Panza's ass. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Sancho, when a man knows not how to read, or is left-handed, it argues one of two things; either that he was the son of exceedingly mean and lowly parents, or that he himself was so incorrigible and ill-conditioned that neither good company nor good teaching could make any impression on him. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

There are two ways to think about all this. One way is that life is absurd to start with and that only a mad man goes out and tries to change the world, to fight for good and against evil. The other way is that life is indeed absurd to start with and that it can be given meaning only if you live it for your ideals, visions and poetic truths, and despite all the skepticism of all the Sancho Panzas' in the world, saddle up whatever worn out horse you've got and go after those visions. ~ Leonard Bernstein

I don't see what my arse has to do with enchantings! ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

I'll lay a bet," said Sancho, "that before long there won't be a tavern, roadside inn, hostelry, or barber's shop where the story of our doings won't be painted up; but I'd like it painted by the hand of a better painter than painted these." "Thou art right, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "for this painter is like Orbaneja, a painter there was at Ubeda, who when they asked him what he was painting, used to say, 'Whatever it may turn out'; and if he chanced to paint a cock he would write under it, 'This is a cock,' for fear they might think it was a fox." - Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote ~ Michael Gruber

We have come to the church, Sancho. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

And what hast thou gained by the government?" asked Ricote. "I have gained," said Sancho, "the knowledge that I am no good for governing, ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

I am not in the habit', said Don Quixote, 'of despoiling those whom I vanquish, nor is it a custom of chivalry to take their horses and leave them on foot, unless the victor has lost his own horse in the fray, in which case it is legitimate to take the defeated knight's horse, as a prize won in lawful war. And so, Sancho, leave that horse, or donkey, or whatever you want to call it, for as soon as its master sees that we have gone he will return for it.'
God knows I'd love to take it', replied Sancho, 'or at least swap it for mine, because I don't think mine's such a good one. These laws of chivalry are really strict, if they won't even stretch to letting you swap one donkey for another - could you please tell me if I can at least swap the tackle?'
I am not very clear about that', replied Don Quixote, 'and as it is a doubtful case, I should say that until I am better informed you can swap it, if your need is very great.'
It's so great', said Sancho, 'that if I'd wanted the tackle to wear it myself I couldn't have needed it more.'
And, now that he'd been granted official permission, he performed his mutatio capparum and refurbished his donkey. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Señor,' responded Sancho, 'withdrawing is not running away, and waiting is not sensible when danger outweighs hope, and wise men know to save something for tomorrow and not risk everything in a single day. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

When?"

"When what?"

"When are you going to marry her? Assuming she'll have you."

"When this thing with Sancho is over."

Jack laughed. "That could be forever. Your tongue is hanging out as it is."

"That's not my tongue."

Which only made Jack laugh harder. "Just do it. Before she leaves you standing in the dust with your cock in your hand."

"Hell, I'd need two hands for that. ~ Kaki Warner

It falls to you, Sancho, if you wish to take revenge for the affront committed against your donkey; I shall assist you from here with helpful words and advice. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

Don't you be worried or annoyed, Sancho, about any comments you hear, or there will never be an end to them. Keep a safe conscience and let people say what they like: trying to still gossips' tongues is like putting up doors in open fields. If the governor leaves office rich they say he's a thief, and if he leaves it poor they say he's a milksop and a fool. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra