It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.
Meaning of the quote
The quote means that it's easy to talk about the importance of discipline, but much harder to actually follow through and be disciplined. Saying you value discipline is different from actually having the self-control to follow the rules and do what's expected of you. The quote suggests that being disciplined can be challenging, even if you recognize its value.
About Miguel De Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes, the renowned Spanish writer, is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world’s most influential novelists. He is best known for his masterpiece, the novel Don Quixote, which has been hailed as the “best book of all time” and the “best and most central work in world literature”. Cervantes had a life marked by hardship and obscurity, but his profound impact on literature is undeniable.
More quotes from Miguel De Cervantes
When the severity of the law is to be softened, let pity, not bribes, be the motive.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Modesty, tis a virtue not often found among poets, for almost every one of them thinks himself the greatest in the world.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
No padlocks, bolts, or bars can secure a maiden better than her own reserve.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Love and war are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the one as in the other.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
A private sin is not so prejudicial in this world, as a public indecency.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
From reading too much, and sleeping too little, his brain dried up on him and he lost his judgment.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Tell me thy company, and I’ll tell thee what thou art.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Tis a dainty thing to command, though twere but a flock of sheep.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world will be better for this.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
To be prepared is half the victory.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Liberty, as well as honor, man ought to preserve at the hazard of his life, for without it life is insupportable.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
True valor lies between cowardice and rashness.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
The knowledge of yourself will preserve you from vanity.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Truth indeed rather alleviates than hurts, and will always bear up against falsehood, as oil does above water.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
That’s the nature of women, not to love when we love them, and to love when we love them not.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Every man is the son of his own works.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Those who’ll play with cats must expect to be scratched.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Well, there’s a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us flat one time or other.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
I have always heard, Sancho, that doing good to base fellows is like throwing water into the sea.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
There is nothing so subject to the inconstancy of fortune as war.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
There is no greater folly in the world than for a man to despair.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
He had a face like a blessing.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
For a man to attain to an eminent degree in learning costs him time, watching, hunger, nakedness, dizziness in the head, weakness in the stomach, and other inconveniences.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
That which costs little is less valued.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
There are only two families in the world, my old grandmother used to say, the Haves and the Have-nots.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Man appoints, and God disappoints.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
To withdraw is not to run away, and to stay is no wise action, when there’s more reason to fear than to hope.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
I do not say a proverb is amiss when aptly and reasonably applied, but to be forever discharging them, right or wrong, hit or miss, renders conversation insipid and vulgar.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
There is also this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as does oil above water.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Our hours in love have wings; in absence, crutches.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
I believe there’s no proverb but what is true; they are all so many sentences and maxims drawn from experience, the universal mother of sciences.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Truth will rise above falsehood as oil above water.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Fear has many eyes and can see things underground.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
The eyes those silent tongues of love.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
He preaches well that lives well.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture of sorrow.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Thou hast seen nothing yet.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
A closed mouth catches no flies.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
When thou art at Rome, do as they do at Rome.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Be a terror to the butchers, that they may be fair in their weight; and keep hucksters and fraudulent dealers in awe, for the same reason.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Drink moderately, for drunkeness neither keeps a secret, nor observes a promise.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Virtue is the truest nobility.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
One of the most considerable advantages the great have over their inferiors is to have servants as good as themselves.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Jests that give pains are no jests.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Pray look better, Sir… those things yonder are no giants, but windmills.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Valor lies just halfway between rashness and cowardice.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
The bow cannot always stand bent, nor can human frailty subsist without some lawful recreation.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
There’s no taking trout with dry breeches.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
‘Tis ill talking of halters in the house of a man that was hanged.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
A person dishonored is worst than dead.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Laziness never arrived at the attainment of a good wish.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Fair and softly goes far.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
God bears with the wicked, but not forever.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Alas! all music jars when the soul’s out of tune.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)
Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our deeds.
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547-1616)