Mateo Alemán

Mateo Alemán (September 1547 – 1614) was a Spanish novelist and writer.

Mateo Alemán (1599)

Quotes

Guzmán de Alfarache (1599-1604)

Quotes reported in Thomas Benfield Harbottle and Martin Hume, Dictionary of quotations (Spanish) (New York: Swan Sonnenschein, 1907)

• Even as there is no virtue which is wanting to the busy man, so there is no vice which does not bear the idle company.
  • Pt. I, Lib. II, Ch. VI.

• Where wedges are worthless, the finger nails may serve.
  • Pt. I, Lib. III, Ch. VIII.

• Those who are not bettered by kind treatment, or moved by soft words, must be brought under by the application of stern and rigorous punishment.
  • Pt. I, Lib. III, Ch. IX.

• On a day when you can dine on dry bread in your own house, do not seek to eat tender peacocks in the house of another.
  • Pt. I, Lib. III, Ch. X.

• Even the ass wearies of work.
  • Pt. II, Lib. I, Ch. III.

• He soon retires (i.e., into a cloister) who finds religion late.
  • Pt. II, Lib. I, Ch. III.

• An unsatisfactory agreement is less harmful than a successful lawsuit.
  • Pt. II, Lib. II, Ch. II.

• Idleness is the open field of perdition, well tilled and sown with evil thoughts.
  • Pt. II, Lib. II, Ch. VI.

• A little pebble will a waggon overturn.
  • Pt. II, Lib. II, Ch. VIII.

• How oft he finds himself the last, who was the first to saddle.
  • Pt. II, Lib. II, Ch. IX.

• It is the treason that finds favour, and not the traitor who is guilty of it.
  • Pt. II, Lib. II, Ch. X.

• He who buys what he needs not, sells what he needs.
  • Pt. II, Lib. III, Ch. III.

• The wise man's rule is worth much more to him than the fool's revenue.
  • Pt. II, Lib. III, Ch. III.

• The doctor begins where the apothecary ends, and the clergyman where the doctor ends.
  • Pt. II, Lib. III, Ch. V.

• Better a thrifty son-in-law and poor, than a glutton who is rich.
  • Pt. II, Lib. III, Ch. X.