Mateo Alemán

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

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.