The name of Federico García Lorca is widely known in Spanish literature One of the greatest exponents of Spanish poetry and dramaturgy and one of the main figures of the generation of ’27, this poet, writer and playwright has left countless phrases and reflections to remember throughout his work regarding various themes. .
In this article we present a series of phrases by Federico García Lorca that allow us to see his point of view on life and those elements that he considered essential.
Below we leave you about sixty phrases by Lorca, which talk about topics such as love, hope, destiny and art, all of them frequent elements of his work.
1. Poetry does not want followers, it wants lovers
Writing poetry is only possible if it is done from the heart and expressing what you feel, not as something rational or as an attempt to grow or train one’s abilities.
2. Throw away sadness and melancholy. Life is kind, it has few days and only now do we have to enjoy it
This phrase tells us that we should take advantage of our lives, even though we may sometimes feel pain.
3. Since I have not worried about being born, I do not worry about dying
We don’t control when we will die or how long we will live, so we don’t have to obsess about it but about living.
4. Luck comes to those who least expect it
Often, things happen when you least look for and expect them.
5. Only mystery makes us live. Just the mystery
The mysterious, the unknown, is what drives us to search, to be curious and to get excited about life.
6. The most terrible of all feelings is the feeling of having dead hope
Hopelessness makes us feel that nothing we do is going to make sense, depriving us of the desire to fight to achieve our dreams.
7. He who wants to scratch the moon will scratch his heart
It expresses the need to take risks, to learn to lose, to feel pain, if we want to achieve our dreams.
8. I feel my chest full of little hearts, like bells
This phrase shows what the excitement, nervousness and joy of feeling excited about something or someone means.
9. I don’t believe that any artist works in a state of fever
The artist is not a sick person or someone who depends on sudden bursts of genius, but someone who is capable of expressing what is inside him in a coherent and beautiful way.
10. Books! Books! Here is a magic word that is equivalent to saying “love, love,” and that people should ask for as they ask for bread.
Culture is something essential for Lorca, since it allows human beings to learn and develop.
11. I want to cry because I feel like it
Crying, expressing one’s feelings, is something positive that frees us and allows us to overcome things.
12. Woman was not born to be understood, but to be loved
What we should do is not pretend to know and understand everything about others, but to love them.
13. The famous man has the bitterness of having his chest cold and pierced by dull lanterns that others direct at them.
Fame means that others pay attention to what you do, that they criticize you and focus their gaze on you, which can be painful for those who have it.
14. Being silent and burning is the biggest punishment we can take on ourselves
Part of the work “Blood Wedding” expresses that silence can cause deep suffering in those who maintain it.
15. Poetry is the union of two words that one never assumed could be put together and that form something like a mystery
Poetry is something unique, in that a work is formed from what one feels, often ignoring what it means.
16. Waiting, the knot is undone and the fruit ripens
Time makes us grow and learn, as well as achieve our goals if we act to achieve them.
17. Solitude is the great shaper of the spirit
Although loneliness can be painful, it makes us learn what and how we are, as well as reflect on what we want.
18. And even if you didn’t love me, I would love you for your gloomy look, like the lark loves the new day only for the dew.
Unrequited love causes a lot of suffering, but not being reciprocated will not make you stop loving and admiring that person.
19. On the flag of freedom I embroidered the greatest love of my life
Loving and being free are two concepts that go hand in hand, influencing and stimulating each other.
20. Theater is poetry that leaves the book to become human. And when she becomes human she speaks and screams, cries and despairs
A great playwright, Lorca considered that theater allows us to express in a lively and direct way the core of what art entails: the expression of our being.
21. Green, I love you green. Wind green. Green branches. The boat on the sea and the horse on the mountain
Nature was also a source of inspiration for Lorca.
22. Look to the right and left of time and may your heart learn to be calm
This phrase expresses the need to focus on the present, being able to look at the past or the future without feeling nostalgia for the former or anxiety regarding the latter.
23. Harmony made flesh, you are the brilliant summary of the lyrical. In you sleeps melancholy, the secret of the kiss and the scream
This phrase expresses the feelings awakened by the loved person, and what it inspires in one’s own being.
24. The physical, biological, natural agony of a body due to hunger, thirst or cold lasts little, very little. But the agony of the unsatisfied soul lasts a lifetime
Lorca expresses the need to live our lives as we wish to do so, and it is important to feel satisfied with what we do with the little time we have.
25. Because you believe that time heals and that walls cover up, and it is not true, it is not true.
There are pains that do not go away with time nor can they be hidden, but must be expressed and worked on if we want to overcome them.
26. Our ideal does not reach the stars: it is serene, simple. We would like to make honey like bees, or have a sweet voice or a loud cry, or easy to walk on the grass or breasts where our children suck.
This phrase speaks of expectations and desires, of what we would like to become.
27. There are things locked inside the walls that, if they suddenly went out into the street and screamed, would fill the world
We tend to hide and conceal many feelings, sensations and thoughts, usually with more being hidden than expressed.
28. Translation destroys the spirit of the language
The language in which each one is expressed contains to a large extent part of the nature of the message that is transmitted. Trying to translate it alters it.
29. Trees that sing are cut down and dry. And the serene mountains become plains. But the song of water is an eternal thing
Time passes for everyone, but some things remain. Like dreams and ideas.
30. I am not a man, nor a poet, nor a leaf, but a wounded pulse that senses the beyond
We are beings with impulses and feelings that must be free to express themselves and relate to the world.
31. In an ark of kisses from mouths already closed, she is eternal captive, sister of the heart
This phrase tells us about melancholy, generated by the memory of love lived in the past and lost.
32. History is not only verified in poetry but, thanks to it, it is condensed, acquires meaning, creates images and symbols in which Americans recognize themselves.
Poetry allows us to express what people think, feel and live, being part of history and allowing us to be free.
33. To whom you tell the secret you give your freedom
Trust is something very precious, since whoever trusts risks part of their being. It must be respected and work to be worthy of it.
34. The first kiss that tasted like a kiss and was like fresh rain for my children’s lips
The author remembers the emotion and sensations that come with kissing someone you love.
35. Nothing disturbs the past centuries. We cannot take a breath from the old
The past has already passed. We must focus on changing what we can change, the present and the future.
36. Having a child is not having a bouquet of roses
Children are not a mere complement or something that only brings joy. They are little people who need to be taken care of, which entails a great responsibility.
37. Poetic creation is an indecipherable mystery, like the mystery of the birth of man. You hear voices, you don’t know where, and it’s useless to worry where they come from.
Phrases that tell us about inspiration, as something that should not try to be reasoned but rather seeks to express itself without further ado.
38. There is childish sweetness in the still morning
Stillness and silence can convey a deep sense of peace and joy, showing us a world in which to act and to discover.
39. A clear rest and there our kisses, sonorous moles of the echo, would open very far away. And your heart warm, nothing more
Again, this phrase reflects love and passion as a force that makes us feel alive.
40. The night does not want to come so that you do not come, nor can I go. But I will go, even if a scorpion sun eats my temple
We must fight for our love, even if everything seems to go against it.
41. When the moon rises, the bells are lost and impenetrable paths appear. When the moon rises, the sea covers the earth and the heart feels like an island in the infinite.
The author makes us see the night as a moment of inspiration and as a moment in which dreams arise. That moment when we stop acting with reason to move to the heart.
42. People are books. The cities lying newspapers
Criticism of falsehood, hypocrisy and the need to give a good image, typical of the modern and urban world, which means that we cannot observe the truth of things.
43. The two elements that the traveler captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish
As in the previous sentence, it is expressed that in the city there is a tendency to have a stressful and not very human attitude towards life.
44. So fill my madness with words or let me live in my serene night of the soul, forever dark
Human interaction is something fundamental, which can lead us to achieve great things or destroy us completely. In this phrase we are talking about love, the need for contact with the one you love.
45. There are souls that one wants to look out at, like a window full of sun
Some people awaken in us the need and desire to get closer to them, which generates confidence and inspires us.
46. The language of the people puts the verses in diminutive. Nothing so inciting for confidence and love
The author expresses the beauty that natural language contains, awakening feelings of closeness between speakers.
47. How difficult it is for us to cross the thresholds of all the doors!
A small part of his poem “Secrets” reflects the difficulty of crossing the barriers that we put up for ourselves and those that others put up so that we know the truth about them.
48. Listen, my son, the silence. It is an undulating silence, a silence where valleys and echoes slide and which tilts our foreheads towards the ground.
Silence is not expressionless or empty, but is full of meaning.
49. Every minute, every person, every attitude can be the germ of a dramatic work. Each creature we encounter goes through different dramatic climates throughout its life, in infinite combination until its last scene in which it lies down to die.
Every being has its story, living its life and experiencing great moments of both happiness and sadness.
50. The snow of the soul has flakes of kisses and scenes that sank in the shadow or in the light of the one who thinks them
In this phrase Lorca tells us about the memory and desire for someone we love, and how this has affected us.
51. Don’t look at me anymore! If you want, I will give you my eyes, which are fresh, and my back so you can fix the hump you have.
Envy is the theme of this phrase, expressing the desire and continuous rumination and observation of the envious person regarding what is envied and the one who possesses it.
52. If hope goes out and Babel begins, what torch will illuminate the paths on Earth?
This phrase refers to hopelessness and the lack of communication and understanding with our fellow human beings, and the pain that it can entail.
53. Life in the cemetery is so sad! Frog, start your singing!
Fragment of the poem “The Diamond”, expresses a feeling of anguish, sadness and unease regarding what may be to come.
54. I want to sleep for a while, a while, a minute, a century; but let everyone know that I have not died; that there is a stable of gold on my lips; that I am a little friend of the West wind; that I am the immense shadow of my tears
Reflection of the feeling of tiredness, of the desire to rest and sink into oblivion of the pain without completely disappearing.
55. But two has never been a number because it is an anguish and its shadow
Lorca expresses in this verse that it is not easy to be two, especially when one of the parties only limits themselves to projecting onto the other their fear or their fear of not being enough on their own in the form of a dependency or codependency. Loving, and truly being two, means being two independent beings even though we are linked by our feelings.
56. You will never understand what I love you, because you sleep in me and you are asleep. I hide you crying, pursued by a voice of penetrating steel
These verses refer to the love that remains silent and the pain it causes in those who do not communicate it.
57. Autumn will come with conch shells, fog grapes and grouped mountains, but no one will want to look into your eyes, because you have died forever
Verse from the poem “Absent Soul” sadly reflects that the person who dies will never again feel or experience what is happening in the world.
58. We must give the perfume that our souls contain! You have to be all songs, all light and goodness. We must open ourselves completely in the face of the black night, so that we may be filled with the immortal dew!
Despite the pain and suffering, we must do everything we can to make the world a better place.
59. What matters most to me is living
The author expresses that what is most important is to live our lives the way we want, fighting to achieve our dreams without letting ourselves be limited by fear.
60. Heart. Why do you rule over me, if I don’t want to?
Love is not something rational. We don’t choose who we fall in love with, or why. It just arises.
61. He who wants to scratch the moon will scratch his heart.
The moon is one of the most present elements in Lorca’s poetry.
62. The good Chinese is closer to me than the bad Spanish.
Lorca was always opposed to nationalism and extremist ideologies.
63. We are from secret poetry.
Phrase that Lorca said, referring to himself to Neruda, when they traveled to give a conference to a town in Spain.
64. The most terrible of all feelings is that of having dead hope.
Lorca’s work is full of truly pessimistic, sad and unsettling phrases.
65. The moon came to the forge. With his tuberose bustle.
One of his best-known verses, belonging to the Romance de la Luna Luna.
66. Let’s go to the dark corner, where I always love you, I don’t care about the people, nor the poison they throw at us.
His homosexuality forced him to live his romances and loves in secret.
67. Snow is falling on the deserted field of my life, and my hopes, which wander far away, are afraid of freezing or being lost.
Lorca’s verses manage to convey states of anguish, pain and sadness.
68. Death, cruel death, leaves a green branch for love.
Death is also present in many of the verses of this great poet.
69. I have reached the line where nostalgia ceases and the drop of tears becomes an alabaster of spirit.
Lorca knew how to express like no one else what it is to feel desolate, helpless or sad.
70. I know there is no straight path. There is no straight path in this world. Just a giant maze of junctions and intersections.
Some of his phrases contain very deep philosophical messages.
