Diligence is the mother of good fortune.

The sentence comes from chapter XLVI of the first part of Don Quixote. At the inn, the brawls that Don Quixote compared to the discord of the camp of Agramante have just been calmed, and the knight kneels before Dorotea, whom he takes for Princess Micomicona. She will not let him speak until he rises, and then he opens his speech with this “common proverb”. He wants to prove that they should set out without delay: in war, he says, “speed and promptness forestall the designs of the enemy”, and the giant could fortify himself if given time.

The speech does not last long. Sancho interrupts it to say that he has seen the supposed princess kissing Don Fernando, Don Quixote flies into a rage, and the chapter ends with the knight shut in a cage on an ox-cart, convinced that he is being carried off under an enchantment.

The saying was already a proverb in Cervantes’s time and is still alive: good luck is earned by effort and promptness. The original Spanish text follows the spelling of an 1842 edition.

Don Quixote, Part I, chapter XLVI, 1605

Original text checked word for word in the work; the translation is by quotesay.

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