The 84 Best Phrases of Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway is one of the most important writers in history . This author is one of the great references of American literature, known for works such as The Old Man and the Sea or Goodbye to Arms, and winner of a Nobel Prize and a Pulitzer.
- Related article: "100 phrases from famous books and writers (essential)"
The most memorable Ernest Hemingway phrases
In the following lines you will find a selection of phrases by Ernest Hemingway to immerse yourself in the mentality and genius of this great writer.
1. Always do sober what you said you were going to do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
An advice full of humor.
2. The most painful thing is getting lost in the process of loving someone too much and forgetting that he is also special.
Each person exists beyond the emotions we feel for her.
3. Why, darling, I do not live at all when I'm not with you.
About the bonds of dependence created with love .
4. The first cure for a mismanaged nation is the inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both provide a temporary wealth; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of opportunistic politicians and economists.
A critique of the dialectic between prosperity and misery.
5. Going to another country does not make any difference. I tried all that. You can not get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. It's not possible.
The problems do not go by the simple fact of moving.
6. The best way to know if you can trust someone is to trust him.
To trust someone, it is necessary to make a sacrifice and take the first step.
7. Why do old people wake up so early? Is it to have a longer day?
An appreciation based on the personal experience of the everyday.
8. All my life I have seen the words as if I were seeing them for the first time.
A way to experience language as a constant flow.
9. When writing a novel, a writer must create living people; people, not characters. A character is a caricature.
Literature seen as a different plane of existence.
10. The world breaks us all, and later, many are strong in broken places.
The strengths appear from mistakes or emotional wounds .
11. There is nothing noble about being superior to your neighbor; the true nobility is to be superior to your previous self.
The competition that is worthwhile is the one that takes place with oneself.
12. It may not be as strong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have a resolution.
An optimistic look towards the future.
13. Try to understand it. You are not a character of tragedy.
Not everything that happens to us happens because the world revolves around us.
14. We are all apprentices in a trade in which nobody becomes a teacher.
It is impossible to reach absolute mastery.
15. Wisdom, power and knowledge have a secret, it is humility.
Being humble leads us to persist.
16. Do you never get the feeling that your whole life is happening and you are not taking advantage of it? Do you realize that you have lived almost half the time you have to live?
An appreciation of what a well-lived life is.
17. Live the full life of the mind, exalted by new ideas, intoxicated by the romance of the unusual.
One of the phrases of Ernest Hemingway focused on a positive message.
18. I love to sleep. My life has a tendency to collapse when I'm awake, you know?
A very personal statement.
19. It is good to have an end of the route where to go; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
The goal is not as important as the process.
20. When you start living outside of yourself, everything is dangerous.
Leave the comfort zone It has its costs.
- Maybe you're interested: "How to get out of your comfort zone? 7 keys to achieve it"
21. Now is not the time to think about what you do not have. Think of what you can do with that.
Obsessing with what is missing does not help progress.
22. The difficult part of writing a novel is to finish it.
Tying the loose ends and creating something that gives meaning to all of the above is complicated.
23. If the others heard me talking out loud, they would think I'm crazy. But since I'm not, I do not care.
What others think is not as important as it seems to us.
24. There is nothing to write. All you do is sit in front of a typewriter and bleed.
Writing may simply be expressing our emotional side.
25. I drink to make other people more interesting.
A phrase full of humor about social relationships.
26. I loved you when I saw you today and I loved you forever, but I had never seen you before.
An apparent paradox.
27. It is foolish not to have hope. It is a sin not to think.
You can not live without expecting anything.
28. I'm not unfaithful, honey. I have many failures, but I am very faithful. You'll be fed up with me, I'll be very faithful.
A quality to claim.
29. I'm not brave anymore, honey. I'm all broken. They have broken me.
Bad experiences they can lead us to stop wanting to face our fears.
30. The most ruthless beings are always the sentimental ones.
An aphorism to reflect.
31. I am trying in all my stories to convey the feeling of real life, not only to represent life, or criticize, but to make it really alive.
In a few lines of text inhabits a universe.
32. Worry a little every day and in life you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But be prepared not to worry: worry never fixes anything.
Obsessions, in themselves, do not work if they do not lead to action.
33. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I prefer to be realistic. Then, when luck comes, you're ready.
Adjusting to realistic expectations makes us more stable.
34. All thinking men are atheists.
An opinion about religiosity.
35. Courage is grace under pressure.
Interesting metaphor about the difficult moments.
36. Never think that war, no matter how necessary or justified, is not a crime.
There are contexts that are inherently bad.
37. But man is not made for defeat, he said. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.
An important nuance.
38. Do not do what you honestly do not want to do. Do not confuse movement with action.
It is better not to be deceived.
39. It's two different things to know a name and know what you have in your head.
Knowing someone does not lead us to know exactly what you think.
40. Happiness in smart people is the weirdest thing I know.
A reflection on intelligence.
41. We are all broken, that's how the light comes in.
A metaphor about how through wounds we grow.
42. That terrible state of depression, being good or being bad, is what is known as the artist's reward.
About the tormented character of many artists.
43. In a writer's office the wastebasket is the best piece of furniture.
Funny observation about the writer's task .
44. The important thing is to become a teacher in your old age to acquire the courage to do what children did when they did not know anything.
The best of two ages.
45. There is not a friend as loyal as a book.
A source of knowledge
46. Good people, if we think about it a bit, are always happy people.
About kindness.
47. The first draft of anything is crap.
Do not get discouraged.
48. There is something that differentiates the rich from the rest: the rich man has money.
A differentiation that emphasizes similarities.
49. Forget your personal tragedy. We are all angry.
Go beyond individuality.
50. The life of every man ends in the same way. Only the details of how he lived and how he died distinguish one man from another.
About what makes us memorable .
51. A ton of madness. That is the poets. That is how they should be. You can not put a crazy ton into the madhouse.
A way to channel non-normative ways of thinking.
52. A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, can hide their feelings, but a cat can not.
About the repressed character of the human being.
53. The most horrible thing is the blank sheet of paper.
Starting to write is very complicated.
54. Every man who begins to live in a serious way inside, also begins to lead a simpler life on the outside.
Another of Hemingway's phrases that show a paradox.
55. I like to listen. I learned a lot listening carefully. Most people never listen.
Standing and watching helps us grow.
56. All you have to do is write a true sentence. Write the truest prayer that you know.
Starting from something that is true helps to chain more affirmations.
57. The world is a good place and it is worth fighting for it.
About the need to strive to improve the world .
58. From a time here I tried to write the best I can. Sometimes I have the good fortune to write the best I can.
A sample of the humility of this artist.
59. Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than an insult applied by critics to everything they still do not understand or that seems to differ from their moral concepts.
An opinion about rationalized subjectivity.
60. It takes two years to learn to speak and sixty years to learn to shut up.
Another aphorism full of a sense of humor based on irony.
61. No weapon has ever established a moral problem. A solution can be imposed, but can not be guaranteed to be fair.
The use of force does not contribute anything to debates about morality or ethics, it simply imposes an option.
62. You still do not know, but you love me.
A romantic perspective that goes beyond the logic of time.
63. A man has to suffer a great deal of pain to write a funny book.
Another paradox about literature .
64. I felt that loneliness that one feels at the end of a day of life that one has wasted.
A bitter feeling
65. As a writer, you must not judge, you must understand.
Going beyond moral evaluations helps to understand different points of view.
66. My goal is to leave on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.
Less is more.
67. Never go on a trip with someone you do not love.
A recommendation that can be seen as a metaphor for life.
68. If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, stay with you, since Paris is a mobile party.
An experience that can change lives.
69. Write hard and clear about what hurts.
Crudity helps establish an emotional connection.
70. When people talk, they listen completely. Most people never listen.
Attend to everything that flows in communication allows you to understand better
71. Talent is the way you live your life.
Talent applies to everything.
72. You are so brave and calm that I forget that you are suffering.
Appearances can distance us.
73. An intelligent man is sometimes forced to drink to spend time with fools.
Another observation of literal interpretation.
74. So far, on morality, I only know that what is moral is what makes you feel good afterwards and what is immoral is what makes you feel bad afterwards.
A very simple way to understand morality.
75. But life is not difficult to handle when you have nothing to lose.
About what we do to live life.
76. All truly evil things start from innocence.
Innocence can lead us to build a perverse morality.
77. The older we are, the harder it is to have heroes, but it is a kind of necessity.
The references we admire they lead us to develop.
78. I love to sleep. My life has a tendency to collapse when I'm awake, you know?
A nice metaphor.
79. The sea is sweet and beautiful, but it can also be cruel.
The personification of the sea to express how we live it.
80. Despite not following his dictates, man always has a heart.
The feelings always count.
81. There is not one thing that is true. Everything is true.
A relativistic way of seeing things.
- Maybe you're interested: "Moral relativism: definition and philosophical principles"
82. Live the full life of the mind, exalted by new ideas, intoxicated by the romance of the unusual.
The novel feeds our mind.
83. If two people love each other there can not be a happy ending.
A tragic vision about love.
84. They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and proper to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet or proper in your death. You will die like a dog without a good reason.
A tragic way to see the world as a place without meaning.
