Gabriela Mistral Quotes
A crippled child Said, "How shall I dance?" Let your heart dance We said. Then the invalid said: "How shall I sing?" Let your heart sing We said Then spoke the poor dead thistle, "But I, how shall I dance?" Let your heart fly to the wind We said. Then God spoke from above "How shall I descend from the blue?" Come dance for us here in the light We said. All the valley is dancing Together under the sun, And the heart of him who joins us not Is turned to dust, to dust.
Mistral, Gabriela. "Danza." Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral, translated by Ursula K. Le Guin, University of New Mexico Press, 2003, p. 55.
Helen Keller was a remarkable woman who was blind and deaf, and yet she became a great orator and social reformer.
Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, known by her pseudonym Gabriela Mistral (Spanish: [ɡaˈβɾjela misˈtɾal]), was a Chilean poet-diplomat, educator and humanist. In 1945 she became the first Latin American author to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature, "for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world". Some central themes in her poems are nature, betrayal, love, a mother's love, sorrow and recovery, travel, and Latin American identity as formed from a mixture of Native American and European influences. Her portrait also appears on the 5,000 Chilean peso bank note.
