Ernest Hemingway Quotes

I am life. I have no name. I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.

The rose petal floats on water. The kingfisher flashes above the pond. Life and beauty swirl in the midst of death.

Why, Yrael?” it said, as the last of the dark gave way to silver, and the shining sphere of metal sank slowly to the ground. “Why?” “Life,” said Yrael, who was more Mogget than it ever knew. “Fish and fowl, warm sun and shady trees, the field mice in the wheat, under the cool light of the moon.

Just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.

Life in the country teaches one that the really stimulating things are the quiet, natural things, and the really wearisome things are the noisy, unnatural things. It is more exciting to stand still than to dance. Silence is more eloquent than speech. Water is more stimulating than wine. Fresh air is more intoxicating than cigarette smoke. Sunlight is more subtle than electric light. The scent of grass is more luxurious than the most expensive perfume. The slow, simple observations of the peasant are more wise than the most sparkling epigrams of the latest wit.

He was in love with life as an ant on a summer blade of grass.

The world is so full and abundant it is like a pregnant woman carrying a child in one arm and leading another by the hand. Every puddle in the lane is ringed with sipping butterflied that fly up in flutter when you walk past in the late morning on your way to get the mail.

If you're afraid to die, you will not be able to live.

I suppose the pleasure of the country life lies really in the eternally renewed evidences of the determination to live. That is a truism when said, but anything but a truism when daily observed. Nothing shows up the difference between the thing said or read, so much as the daily experience of it.

Leaves glowing in the sun, zealous hum of bumblebees, From afar, from somewhere beyond the river, echoes of lingering voices And the unhurried sounds of a hammer gave joy not only to me. Before the five senses were opened, and earlier than any beginning They waited, ready, for all those who would call themselves mortals, So that they might praise, as I do, life, that is, happiness.

Only spread a fern-frond over a man's head and worldly cares are cast out, and freedom and beauty and peace come in.

From the grasses in the field to the stars in the sky, each one is doing just that; and there is such profound peace and surpassing beauty in nature because none of these tries forcibly to transgress its limitations.

I have sat here happy in the gardens, Watching the still pool and the reeds And the dark clouds. . . . But though I greatly delight In these and the water lilies, That which sets me nighest to weeping Is the rose and white colour of the smooth flag-stones, And the pale yellow grasses Among them.

How fair is a garden amid the toils and passions of existence.

Oh! To be a butterfly Still, upon a flower, Winking with its painted wings, Happy in the hour.

You want to live-but do you know how to live? You are scared of dying-and, tell me, is the kind of life you lead really any different from being dead?

There is magic in the feel of a paddle and the movement of a canoe, a magic compounded of distance, adventure, solitude, and peace. The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness and of a freedom almost forgotten. It is an antidote to insecurity, the open door to waterways of ages past and a way of life with profound and abiding satisfactions. When a man is part of his canoe, he is part of all that canoes have ever known.

A dead hydrangea is as intricate and lovely as one in bloom. Bleak sky is as seductive as sunshine, miniature orange trees without blossom or fruit are not defective; they are that.

Nothing is more important than life. Nothing. You realise the simplicity of that point only when you confront death everyday.

Often I have been exhausted on trout streams, uncomfortable, wet, cold, briar scarred, sunburned, mosquito bitten, but never, with a fly rod in my hand have I been less than in a place that was less than beautiful.

The grapes on a score of rolling hills are red with autumn flame. Across Sonoma Mountain wisps of sea fog are stealing. The afternoon sun smoulders in the drowsy sky. I have everything to make me glad I am alive. I am filled with dreams and mysteries. I am all sun and air and sparkle. I am vitalized, organic.

One day all of us will die but - and this is the important thing - we are not dead yet.

And so she comes to dream herself the tree, The wind possessing her, weaving her young veins, Holding her to the sky and its quick blue, Drowning the fever of her hands in sunlight. She has no memory, nor fear, nor hope Beyond the grass and shadows at her feet.

What! alive, and so bold, O earth?