Quotations

Remarks poets made beyond their poems — letters, journals, conversation — gathered as a readable library. Browse by topic or author, or search the words themselves. Currently 7,492 active remarks.

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Showing 24 of 7,492 · page 59 of 313

“All I desire, for now, is to be an extra in the immense comedy of humanity; when my part is over, to slip backstage without being hissed or applauded.”

Original: He aquí hoy por hoy todo lo que ambiciono. Ser un comparsa en la inmensa comedia de la humanidad; y concluido mi papel de hacer bulto, meterme entre bastidores, sin que me silben ni me aplaudan, sin que nadie se aperciba siquiera de mi salida. — Bécquer imagines a quiet life without ambition for fame or public recognition. · Letter III, Cartas desde mi celda (Spanish)

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

“The logic knows how to forge unassailable arguments which, nevertheless, do not convince. How easily precise conclusions are drawn from a false premise.”

Original: La lógica sabe fraguar razonamientos inatacables que, á pesar de todo, no convencen. ¡Con tanta facilidad se sacan deducciones precisas de una base falsa! — Bécquer warns that flawless reasoning cannot rescue a false starting point. · Letter IV, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

“When a poet paints his love for you in magnificent verse, doubt him. When he reveals it to you in prose, and bad prose at that, believe him.”

Original: Cuando un poeta te pinta en magníficos versos su amor, duda. Cuando te lo dé á conocer en prosa, y mala, cree. — With characteristic irony, Bécquer suggests that spontaneous prose may reveal genuine feeling more honestly than polished verse. · Letter II, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

“Everyone feels. Only some are given the gift of preserving, like a treasure, the living memory of what they have felt. I believe these are the poets.”

Original: Todo el mundo siente. Sólo á algunos seres les es dado el guardar, como un tesoro, la memoria viva de lo que han sentido. Yo creo que éstos son los poetas. — For Bécquer, the poet's distinctive gift is preserving the life of emotion in memory. · Letter II, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

“When I feel, I do not write. I keep in my brain, as in a mysterious book, the impressions that have left their mark upon it.”

Original: Cuando siento no escribo. Guardo, sí, en mi cerebro escritas, como en un libro misterioso, las impresiones que han dejado en él su huella al pasar. — Bécquer describes creation as an act of recollection in which experience is allowed to settle before becoming art. · Letter II, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

“There is a small, material, mechanical part in every work of man, which true, original inspiration scorns in its ardent moments of rapture.”

Original: Hay una parte mecánica, pequeña y material en todas las obras del hombre, que la primitiva, la verdadera inspiración desdeña en sus ardientes momentos de arrebato. — Bécquer distinguishes the mysterious impulse of inspiration from the later mechanical labour of making art. · Letter II, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

“I know nothing, I have studied nothing; I have read a little, felt quite a lot and thought a great deal, though I cannot say whether well or badly.”

Original: Yo nada sé, nada he estudiado; he leído un poco, he sentido bastante y he pensado mucho, aunque no acertaré á decir si bien ó mal. — His deliberately self-deprecating admission places lived experience and reflection above academic authority. · Letter I, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

“In contrast, inner conviction often persuades, even when the method of reasoning is in the greatest disorder. The accent of faith is so irresistible.”

Original: En cambio, la convicción íntima suele persuadir aunque en el método del raciocinio reine el mayor desorden. ¡Tan irresistible es el acento de la fe! — Bécquer contrasts rational coherence with the persuasive force of deeply felt conviction. · Letter IV, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

“The poetry is you because that vague aspiration towards beauty which characterises it, and which in man is a faculty of intelligence, might in you be called an instinct.”

Original: La poesía eres tú, porque esa vaga aspiración á lo bello que la caracteriza, y que es una facultad de la inteligencia en el hombre, en tí pudiera decirse que es un instinto. — Beauty is presented as an instinctive impulse as much as an intellectual one. · Letter I, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

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