About

This is a Sancho Panza proverb generator.

In early 2025, I read Edith Grossman’s wonderful translation (2003) of Don Quixote, and one of the things I loved most about it were Sancho’s voluminous proverbs.

“I have more proverbs in me than a book,” says the squire at one point, “and when I speak they come so thick together into my mouth that they fall to fighting among themselves to get out.”

Don Quixote is often frustrated with the scattershot spewing of Sancho’s proverbs. Here are a few of the things that I like that were said by the knight to the squire:

What does the subject of our conversation have to do with the proverbs you string together like beads?

I say proverbs when they are appropriate, and when I say them they fit like the rings on your fingers, but you drag them in by the hair, and pull them along, and do not guide them.

I understand you so well… that I have penetrated to your most hidden thoughts, and I know the target you are trying to hit with the countless arrows of your proverbs.

This page shows four to six proverbs, randomly selected from a large list I compiled. Most of them are taken verbatim, either from the Edith Grossman edition linked above or from the John Ormsby translation (available here). I also used Sancho Panza’s Proverbs (Ulick Ralph Burke, 1892) as a reference.

Some of them are my own, or are switched up in a Mad Libs-esque musical chairs of medieval words. For example, “if the shoe fits” could also resolve to “if the nabcheat fits” or “if the gabardine fits”. Yeah, we have fun around here.

This is a silly little webpage. I wrote most of the code late at night, after finishing Don Quixote. You might have noticed some grammatical issues, or a few spelling mistakes. The code is real messy (see for yourself), but silly little webpages are like knight errantry: as long as the cause is noble, it doesn’t really matter how much of a mess you make.

Duncan Petrie
February, 2025

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