“The language of passion is naturally figurative, but its figures are only employed to heighten the intensity of the expression.”

Linking figurative language to the natural expression of strong feeling · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

• Emotion
• Imagery
• Language

“The feelings and the imagination, when skilfully touched, act reciprocally on each other.”

Showing how emotion and imagination strengthen one another · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

• Emotion
• Imagination
• Mind

“The truth is, that poetry which does not find its way to the heart is scarcely deserving of the name.”

Arguing that genuine poetry must reach the emotions · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

• Emotion
• Poetry
• Truth

“The most beautiful poetry is that which takes the strongest hold of the feelings, and, if it is really the most beautiful, then it is poetry in the highest sense.”

Making emotional power central to poetic beauty · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

• Beauty
• Emotion
• Poetry

“Poetry is that art which selects and arranges the symbols of thought in such a manner as to excite it the most powerfully and delightfully.”

Describing poetry as the deliberate shaping of thought into imaginative experience · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

• Creativity
• Poetry
• Thought

“The imagination is the most active and the least susceptible of fatigue of all the faculties of the human mind.”

Celebrating the extraordinary endurance of the imaginative faculty · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

• Creativity
• Imagination
• Mind

“It is to the very limitation of this power of language, as it seems to me, that Poetry owes her magic.”

Finding poetic power in what language leaves partly unsaid · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

• Language
• Mystery
• Poetry

“I would rather call poetry a suggestive art. Its power of affecting the mind is by pure suggestion.”

Defining poetry as an art that awakens rather than merely describes · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

• Imagination
• Language
• Poetry

“Never had people written worse in Spain than they did ten years ago.”

Original: Nunca se había escrito peor en España que hace diez años. — A deliberately severe judgement on the literary style preceding modernism · Survey on Modernism, El Nuevo Mercurio, 1907 (Spanish)

• Criticism
• Literature
• Style

“I do not know what unfortunate obsession drove me at that time to bare my soul before the public's consideration, or disregard, which was more likely.”

Original: No sé qué infausta monomanía me acuciaba en aquella época a desnudar mi alma ante la pública consideración o desconsideración, que era más probable. — Looking back ruefully on the exposure of private experience in his earlier writing · Academy address, Semi-poesía y posibilidad, 1938 (Spanish)

• Memory
• Privacy
• Writing

“I call my verses only semi-poetry, and my realities, subject to the laws of ordinary mortal life, I dare call nothing more than possibility.”

Original: Yo no llamo a mis versos sino semi-poesía, y a mis realidades, que obedecen a la ley de vida de los simples mortales, no oso llamar otra cosa que posibilidad. — Characterising his work with modesty and an awareness of human limitation · Academy address, Semi-poesía y posibilidad, 1938 (Spanish)

• Humility
• Life
• Poetry

“My source of inspiration is reality. But an integral reality: the outer world and the inner world, what is seen and what is imagined.”

Original: Mi fuente de inspiración es la realidad. Pero una realidad integral del mundo exterior y del mundo interior. De lo visto y lo imaginado. — Defining inspiration as a union of observation and imagination · Confesiones literarias, Cuadernos de Poesía, 1941 (Spanish)

• Creativity
• Experience
• Imagination

“Aesthetic theories have always been made from works of art, never the other way round.”

Original: Las estéticas se han hecho siempre sobre las obras de arte, y nunca viceversa. — Arguing that artistic theory should arise from artworks rather than dictate them · Article, Los jóvenes del Ultra, 1919 (Spanish)

• Art
• Creativity
• Criticism

“To write poems in order to justify an aesthetic theory, however good it may be, is completely absurd and monstrous.”

Original: Escribir poemas para justificar una teoría estética, por buena que sea, es completamente absurdo y monstruoso. — Insisting that poems should not be manufactured merely to prove theories · Article, Los jóvenes del Ultra, 1919 (Spanish)

• Creativity
• Criticism
• Poetry

“To band together, unite or form groups in order to write verse or produce any kind of art is absurd, disagreeable and dangerous to the development of personality.”

Original: Agregarse, unirse, agruparse para escribir versos o producir cualquier género de arte es absurdo, antipático y peligroso para el desarrollo de la personalidad. — Warning that artistic movements can suppress individual creative identity · Article, Los jóvenes del Ultra, 1919 (Spanish)

• Art
• Freedom
• Individuality

“I see no path for the artist other than to cultivate his personality with the utmost care and improve it without cease.”

Original: Yo no veo más camino para el artista que el de cultivar con todo empeño su personalidad y mejorarla sin cesar. — Making continual personal development central to artistic practice · Response to survey, ¿Qué es el Arte? ¿Qué debemos hacer?, 1920 (Spanish)

• Art
• Growth
• Individuality

“Art is something universal, or, if you prefer, individual, which in the end is the best form of universality.”

Original: El arte es cosa universal o si queréis individual, que al cabo es la mejor forma de universalidad. — Suggesting that genuine individuality is itself a path towards universality · Article, El modernismo y la ropa vieja, 1901 (Spanish)

• Art
• Humanity
• Individuality

“Art is not a matter of rhetoric, nor even of literature, but of personality.”

Original: El arte no es cosa de retórica ni aun de literatura, sino de personalidad. — Locating the essential source of art in the individual creator · Lecture, Los poetas de hoy (Spanish)

• Art
• Creativity
• Individuality

“But old things too have their pleasure, their special magic, a delicate and subtle charm across time.”

Original: Pero hay en las cosas antiguas también su agrado, su magia especial, un encanto delicado y fino a través del tiempo. — Affirming that old things possess a beauty distinct from novelty · Essay, Por la capa, in La guerra literaria (Spanish)

• Beauty
• Time
• Tradition

“The ultra-modern undoubtedly has the charm and freshness of youth, a powerful charm.”

Original: Tiene sin duda lo modernísimo el encanto y la frescura de lo joven, un encanto fuerte. — Acknowledging the distinctive attraction of novelty and youth · Essay, Por la capa, in La guerra literaria (Spanish)

• Beauty
• Novelty
• Youth

“I do not object to the new; after all, it too will grow old, such is the sadness of life.”

Original: No protesto de lo nuevo, que, al cabo, se hará viejo también, pena de la vida. — Viewing novelty and tradition as stages within the same passage of time · Essay, Por la capa, in La guerra literaria (Spanish)

• Novelty
• Time
• Tradition

“One must live, and it is good to see the world, since there is nothing else to chase.”

Original: Preciso es vivir, y bueno está correr mundo, ya que no hay otra cosa que correr. — Encouraging engagement with life and the wider world · Letter to Juan Ramón Jiménez, Autocrítica (Spanish)

• Experience
• Life
• Travel

“The senses and the heart, if they are not exercised, atrophy and languish.”

Original: Los sentidos y el corazón que no se ejercen, se atrofian y languidecen. — Arguing that feeling and perception must be exercised through life · Letter to Juan Ramón Jiménez, Autocrítica (Spanish)

• Emotion
• Experience
• Life

“The sight of a single thing, however beautiful it may be, eventually becomes a nightmare.”

Original: La vista de una sola cosa, por bella que sea, acaba por devenir una pesadilla. — Recognising the need for experience beyond even the most beautiful retreat · Letter to Juan Ramón Jiménez, Autocrítica (Spanish)

• Beauty
• Change
• Experience