Don Quixote's high eulogiums on himself--"the most valorous
adventurer!"--but it is not himself that he has before him, but the idol
of his imagination, the imaginary being whom he is acting. And this,
that it is entirely a third person, excuses his heart from the otherwise
inevitable charge of selfish vanity; and so by madness itself he
preserves our esteem, and renders those actions natural by which he, the
first person, deserves it.

(C. 4.)
Andres and his master. The manner in which Don Quixote redressed this
wrong, is a picture of the true revolutionary passion in its first
honest state, while it is yet only a bewilderment of the understanding.
You have a benevolence limitless in its prayers, which are in fact
aspirations towards omnipotence; but between it and beneficence the
bridge of judgment--that is, of measurement of personal
power--intervenes, and must be passed. Otherwise you will be bruised by
the leap into the chasm, or be drowned in the revolutionary river, and
drag others with you to the same fate.

(C. 4.)
Merchants of Toledo.


When they were come so near as to be seen and heard, Don Quixote
raised his voice, and with arrogant air cried out: "Let the whole
world stand; if the whole world does not confess that there is not in
the whole world a damsel more beautiful than," &c.