Gabriela Mistral Quotes

• You shall create beauty not to excite the senses but to give sustenance to the soul.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Giving, Soul, Senses

  Gabriela Mistral, Doris Dana (1971). “Selected poems of Gabriela Mistral”, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

  108 Copy quote

• Many things can wait. Children cannot. Today their bones are being formed, their blood is being made, their senses are being developed. To them we cannot say "tomorrow." Their name is today.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Education, Children, Teaching

  121 Copy quote

• We are guilty of many errors and many faults, But our worst crime is abandoning the children, Neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, His blood is being made, And his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer 'Tomorrow.' His name is 'Today.'

  Gabriela Mistral

  Children, Errors, Blood

  "His Name is Today". Poem by Gabriela Mistral, mid 1900s.

  111 Copy quote

• Speech is our second possession, after the soul-and perhaps we have no other possession in this world.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Soul, World, Speech

  Gabriela Mistral, Doris Dana (1971). “Selected poems of Gabriela Mistral”, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

  78 Copy quote

• Love beauty it is the shadow of God on the universe

  Gabriela Mistral

  Inspirational, Beauty, Shadow

  79 Copy quote

• What the soul is to the body, so is the artist to his people.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Artist, People, Soul

  54 Copy quote

• Love that stammers, that stutters, is apt to be the love that loves best.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Love

  Gabriela Mistral, Doris Dana (1971). “Selected poems of Gabriela Mistral”, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

  67 Copy quote

• There is the joy of being healthy and fair, but there is overall the beauty, the immense joy of being useful.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Joy, Healthy, Immense

  45 Copy quote

• The poet is an untier of knots, and love without words is a knot, and it drowns.

  Gabriela Mistral

  And Love, Poet, Knots

  47 Copy quote

• I have all that I lost and I go carrying my childhood like a favorite flower that perfumes my hand.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Flower, Hands, Childhood

  31 Copy quote

• I write poetry because I can’t disobey the impulse; it would be like blocking a spring that surges up in my throat. For a long time I’ve been the servant of the song that comes, that appears and can’t be buried away. How to seal myself up now?…It no longer matters to me who receives what I submit. What I carry out is, in that respect, greater and deeper than I, I am merely the channel.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Song, Block, Spring

  Gabriela Mistral (2009). “Madwomen: The "Locas mujeres" Poems of Gabriela Mistral, a Bilingual Edition”, p.17, University of Chicago Press

  31 Copy quote

• Writing tends to cheer me; it always soothes my spirit and blesses me with the gift of an innocent, tender, childlike day. It is the sensation of having spent a few hours in my homeland, with my customs, free whims, my total freedom.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Cheer, Writing, Spirit

  43 Copy quote

• 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.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Children, Heart, Blue

  37 Copy quote

• Let the earth look at me, and bless me, for now I am fecund and sacred, like the palms and the furrows.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Pregnancy, Earth, Sacred

  40 Copy quote

• I have a faithful joy and a joy that is lost. One is like a rose, the other, a thorn. The one that was stolen I have not lost.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Lost Ones, Rose, Joy

  Gabriela Mistral, Doris Dana (1971). “Selected poems of Gabriela Mistral”, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

  19 Copy quote

• My grief and my smile begin in your face, my son.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Grief, Son, Faces

  Roger Martin du Gard, Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, Gabriela Mistral (1971). “Roger Martin du Gard: Gabriela Mistral ; Boris Pasternak”

  19 Copy quote

• Let the radiance of my enthusiasms envelop the poor courtyard and the bare classroom. Let my heart be a stronger column and my goodwill purer gold than the columns and gold of rich schools.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Education, Learning, Heart

  Gabriela Mistral, Doris Dana (1971). “Selected poems of Gabriela Mistral”, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

  22 Copy quote

• Now my belly is as noble as my heart.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Pregnancy, Heart, Noble

  Roger Martin du Gard, Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, Gabriela Mistral (1971). “Roger Martin du Gard: Gabriela Mistral ; Boris Pasternak”

  32 Copy quote

• In the secret of night, my prayer climbs like the liana, My prayer is, and I am not. It grows, and I perish. I have only my hard breath, my reason and my madness. I cling to the vine of my prayer. I tend it at the root of the stalk of night.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Prayer, Night, Roots

  Gabriela Mistral, Doris Dana (1971). “Selected poems of Gabriela Mistral”, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

  21 Copy quote

• Now I am nothing but a veil; all my body is a veil beneath which a child sleeps.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Children, Pregnancy, Sleep

  Roger Martin du Gard, Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, Gabriela Mistral (1971). “Roger Martin du Gard: Gabriela Mistral ; Boris Pasternak”

  20 Copy quote

• For me, religiosity is ... the constant remembrance of the presence of the soul.

  Gabriela Mistral

  Remembrance, Soul, Constant

  23 Copy quote

• All night I have suffered; all night my flesh has trembled to bring forth its gift. The sweat of death is on my forehead; but it is not death, it is life!

  Gabriela Mistral

  Night, Sweat, Flesh

  26 Copy quote

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