60 great phrases by Federico García Lorca

January 13, 2025

The name of Federico García Lorca is widely known within Spanish literature . One of the greatest exponents of Spanish poetry and dramaturgy and one of the main figures of the generation of 27, this poet, writer and playwright has left countless phrases and reflections throughout his work to remember different themes .

In this article we present a series of phrases by Federico García Lorca that allow to see his point of view on life and those elements that he considered primordial.

Sixty big phrases by Federico García Lorca

Then we leave you some sixty sentences of Lorca, which speak of topics such as love, hope, destiny and art, all of them frequent elements of his work.

1. Poetry does not want adepts, wants lovers

Making poetry is only possible if it is done from the heart and expressing what you feel, not as something rational or as an attempt to thrive or train your own skills.

2. Discard sadness and melancholy. Life is kind, it has a few days and only now we have to enjoy it

This phrase tells us that we should take advantage of our life, even though we may sometimes feel pain.

3. Since I did not worry about being born, I do not worry about dying

We do not control when we are going to die or how long we will live, so we do not have to be obsessed with it but with living.

4. Luck comes to those who least expect it

Often, things happen when one least looks for them and waits for them.

5. Only the mystery makes us live. Only the mystery

The mysterious, the unknown, is what drives us to look, to be curious and to get excited about life.

6. The most terrible of all feelings is the feeling of having hope dead

Despair makes us feel that nothing we do is going to make sense, depriving us of the desire to fight for our dreams.

7. He who wants to scratch the moon will scratch his heart

Expresses the need to take risks, to learn to lose, to feel pain, if we want to achieve our dreams.

8. I feel my chest full of hearts, like rattles

This phrase lets see what the emotion, the nervousness and the joy that supposes to feel illusion with something or with someone suppose.

9. I do not think any artist works in a state of fever

The artist is not a sick person or someone who depends on sudden outbursts of genius, but someone who is able to express what is inside them in a coherent and beautiful way.

10. Books! Books! Here is a magic word that is equivalent to saying "love, love", and that the people should ask for as they ask for bread

The culture is something primordial for Lorca, since it allows the human being to learn and develop.

11. I want to cry because I feel like it

Crying, expressing one's feelings, is something positive that frees us and allows us to overcome things.

12. The woman was not born to be understood, but to be loved

What we should do is not pretend to know and understand everything about others, but love them.

13. The famous man has the bitterness of carrying his chest cold and pierced by dull lanterns that direct over them other

Fame supposes that others pay attention to what you do, that they criticize you and focus their gaze on you, which can be painful for those who have it.

14. Shut up and burn is the biggest punishment we can take on

Part of the work "Bodas de sangre" expresses that silence can cause deep suffering in those who maintain it.

15. Poetry is the union of two words that one never supposed that could come together and that form something like a mystery

Poetry is something unique, in which a work is formed from what one feels by often ignoring what it means.

16. Waiting, the knot is undone and the ripe fruit

Time makes us grow and learn, as well as achieve our goals if we act to achieve them.

17. Loneliness is the great shaper of the spirit

Although loneliness can be painful, it makes us learn what and how we are, as well as reflect on what we want.

18. And even if you do not love me, I would love you because of your somber look, as the lark wants the new day only because of the dew

Unrequited love causes a lot of suffering, but not being reciprocated will not stop you from loving and admiring that person.

19. On the flag of freedom I embroidered the greatest love of my life

Loving and being free are two concepts that go hand in hand, influencing each other and stimulating each other.

20. The theater is poetry that leaves the book to become human. And when she becomes human she talks and screams, cries and despairs

A great dramatist, Lorca considered theater to express in a direct and living way the nucleus of what art supposes: the expression of our being.

21. Green I want you green. Green wind. Green branches. The ship on the sea and the horse on the mountain

Nature was also a source of inspiration for Lorca.

22. Look to the right and to the left of time and let your heart learn to be calm

This phrase expresses the need to focus on the present, being able to look to the past or the future without feeling nostalgia for the first or anxiety about the second.

23. Harmony made flesh, you are the brilliant summary of the lyrical. Melancholy sleeps in you, the secret of kiss and shout

This phrase expresses the feelings awakened by the beloved person, and what inspires in the own being.

24. The physical, biological, natural agony of a body through hunger, thirst or cold lasts little, very little. But the agony of the unsatisfied soul lasts all life

Lorca expresses the need to live our life as we want to do it, being important to feel satisfied with what we do with the little time we have.

25. Because you believe that time heals and that the walls cover, and it is not true, it is not true.

There are pains that do not happen over time and can not be hidden, but must be expressed and worked on if we want to overcome them

26. Our ideal does not reach the stars: it is serene, simple. We would like to make honey like bees, or have a sweet voice or loud cry, or easy to walk on the herbs or breasts where our children nurse

This phrase speaks of expectations and desires, of what we would like to become.

27. There are things enclosed within the walls that, if they suddenly went out into the street and shouted, they would fill the world

We tend to hide and hide many feelings, sensations and thoughts, usually being more what is hidden than what is expressed.

28. Translation destroys the spirit of the language

The language in which each is expressed contains to a large extent part of the nature of the message that is transmitted. Try to translate it, alter it.

29. The trees that sing are cut and dried. And the serene mountains become plains. But the song of water is an eternal thing

Time passes for everyone, but some things remain. Like dreams and ideas.

30. I am not a man, nor a poet, nor a leaf, but a wounded pulse that senses the beyond

We are beings with impulses and feelings that must be free to express themselves and relate to the world.

31. In an ark of kisses with closed mouths, she is eternally captive, of the sister heart

This phrase tells us about melancholy, generated by the memory of the love lived in the past and lost.

32. History is not only verified in poetry but, thanks to it, it condenses, acquires meaning, creates images and symbols in which Americans recognize themselves

Poetry allows to express what people think, feel and live, being part of history and allowing to be free.

33. To whom you say the secret you give your freedom

Trust is something very precious, since those who trust risk part of their being. It must be respected and worked to be worthy of it.

34. The first kiss I knew to kiss and it was for my lips children like fresh rain

The author remembers the emotion and the sensations that the fact of kissing someone beloved supposes.

35. Nothing disturbs the past centuries. We can not pull out a sigh of the old

The past has already happened. We must focus on changing what we can change, the present and the future.

36. Having a child is not having a bouquet of roses

The children are not a mere complement or something that only supposes joys. They are small people of whom it is necessary to take care, with what they suppose a great responsibility.

37. The poetic creation is an indecipherable mystery, like the mystery of the birth of man. You hear voices, you do not know where, and it's useless to worry about where they come from

Phrases that speak of inspiration, as something that should not try to reason but seeks to express itself without further ado.

38. There is infant sweetness in the still morning

Stillness and silence can convey a deep sense of peace and joy, showing us a world in which to act and what to discover.

39. A clear rest and there our kisses, echoing polka dots of echo, would be opened far away. And your warm heart, nothing more

Again, this phrase reflects love and passion as a force that makes us feel alive

40. The night does not want to come so that you do not come, nor can I go. But I will go, although a sun of scorpions eat my temple

We must fight for our love, even if everything seems to be against him.

41. When the moon rises, the bells are lost and the impenetrable paths appear. When the moon rises, the sea covers the earth and the heart feels like an island in the infinite

The author makes us see the night as a moment of inspiration and as a moment in which dreams emerge. That moment in which we stop acting with reason to move to the heart.

42. The towns are books. The periodic lying cities

Criticism of falsehood, hypocrisy and the need to give a good image typical of the modern and urban world, which means that we can not observe the truth of things.

43The two elements that the traveler captures in the big city are extra-human architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish

As in the previous sentence, it is expressed that the city tends to have an attitude towards stressful and not very human life.

44. Fill my words with madness or let me live in my serene night of the soul, forever dark

Human interaction is something fundamental, which can lead us to do great things or to destroy ourselves completely. In this sentence we are talking about love, the need to contact the one we love.

45. There are souls that one wants to look out of, like a window full of sun

Some people awaken in us the need and desire to approach them, which generate confidence and inspire us.

46. The language of the people puts the verses in diminutive. Nothing so inviting for confidence and love

The author expresses the beauty of natural language, awakening sensations of closeness among speakers.

47. What work is hard for us to cross the thresholds of all the doors!

Small part of his poem "Secrets", reflects the difficulty of trespassing the barriers that we put ourselves and those that others put so that we know the truth about them.

48. Hey, my son, silence. It is a wavy silence, a silence where valleys and echoes slide and which tilts the fronts towards the ground

Silence is not something blank or empty, but is full of meaning.

49. Every minute, every person, every attitude can be the germ of a dramatic work. Every creature we come across goes through his life through different dramatic climates, in infinite combinations until his last scene in which he tends to die

Every being has its history, living its life and experiencing great moments of both happiness and sadness.

50. The snow of the soul has flakes of kisses and scenes that sank in the shade or in the light of the one who thinks them

In this sentence Lorca talks about the memory and desire for someone loved, and how it has affected us.

51. Do not look at me anymore! If you want, I'll give you my eyes, which are cool, and my backs so you can compose the hump you have

Envy is the subject of this phrase, expressing the desire and continuous ruminate and observe the envious respect to the envied and those who have it.

52. If hope is extinguished and the Babel is begun, what torch will light the roads on Earth?

This phrase refers to the hopelessness and the lack of communication and understanding with our peers, and the pain it can cause.

53. Life in the cemetery is so sad! Frog, start your singing!

Fragment of the poem "The diamond", expresses a sense of anguish, sadness and uneasiness about what may be to come.

54. I want to sleep for a while, a while, a minute, a century; but let everyone know that I have not died; that there is a stable of gold on my lips; that I am a little friend of the West wind; that I am the immense shadow of my tears

Reflection of the feeling of tiredness, the desire to rest and sink into the oblivion of pain without thereby disappearing completely.

55. But the two has never been a number because it is anguish and its shadow

Lorca expresses in this verse that it is not easy to be two, especially when one of the parties is limited to projecting in the other his fear or fear of not being enough by himself in the form of dependence or codependence. To love, and to be really two, supposes to be two independent beings although we are linked by our feelings.

56. You will never understand what I love you, because you sleep in me and you are asleep. I hide you crying, pursued by a voice of piercing steel

These verses refer to the love that is silent and the pain it provokes in those who do not communicate it.

57. Autumn will come with conches, grapes of fog and clustered mountains, but nobody will want to look at your eyes, because you have died forever

Verse of the poem "Absent soul", reflects with sadness that the one who dies will never feel or live what happens in the world.

58. We must give the perfume that our souls contain! You have to be all songs, all light and goodness. We must open ourselves completely in front of the black night, so that we may be filled with immortal dew!

Despite pain and suffering, we must do everything possible to make the world a better place.

59. What matters most to me is to live

The author expresses that what is more important is to make our life as we want, struggling to achieve our dreams without being constrained by fear.

60. Heart. Why do you send me, if I do not want to?

Love is not rational. We do not choose who we fell in love with, or why. It just comes up.