The 7 best phrases of Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway’s phrases have served as inspiration to many of his readers. They are a gift for anyone who wants to investigate themselves and also delve deeper into the vision of one of the great authors of the 20th century.

Ernest Hemingway was an American writer and journalist who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for The old man and the sea and the Nobel Prize in Literature for his complete work in 1954. Reviewing his literary career, we find seven novels, two essays and four collections of short stories and three novels, three essays and four more short story books came to light posthumously.

They say about Hemingway that he was not in favor of planning his writings, since he loved to discover while he wrote. Now, she liked to retrace her steps to correct, to learn. Another peculiar feature of this writing, which he also confessed to a journalist from The Paris Review, The thing is that he wrote standing up, on a table at chest height, on which he had his typewriter and some notebooks. In addition, he wrote down every day the number of words he had written on a sheet on the wall to know how the work day had gone (his goal was to reach 500-600 words).

As we see, Hemingway was a man of routines with a sober style, impregnated with austerity, and who also, He had a great commitment to writing. So much so that he considered it a private act, not showing his works to anyone until he finished them. Furthermore, he thought that the exercise of writing required solitude and concentration.

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Lovers of his work or not, there is no doubt that Hemingway had a gift for writing. His stories inaugurated something like a new type of realism, with roots in 19th century North American stories, but with a certain tendency towards harsh everyday life with poetic features. Without a doubt, he left a great legacy on which we navigate today remembering some of his best phrases.

The ability to improve oneself

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your neighbor; “True nobility is being superior to your previous self.”

This is one of Ernest Hemingway’s phrases that can most enrich our relationships. True greatness is not found in surpassing others, but in surpassing oneself.. In continuing to grow, despite storms, obstacles or challenges; thanks to storms, obstacles or challenges. Because perhaps our great contradiction is the one that is expressed precisely in this idea: what challenges us the most is perhaps also what can nourish us the most.

The wisdom of listening

“I like to listen. I learned a lot by listening carefully. “Most people never listen.”

Ernest Hemingway was very clear: few people know how to truly listen; The majority only listen, paying attention but not paying attention. However, Listening is one of the best tools to create solid and intimate bonds.

When we listen we pay deep attention because we turn all our senses towards the other. We stop focusing on ourselves to make visible the other and their story, to connect deeply on an emotional level. Only in this way will we be able to create relationships sewn through the threads of authenticity.

Self-love as support

“The most painful thing is to lose yourself in the process of loving someone too much and forgetting that they are also special.”

Another of Ernest Hemingway’s phrases that we should burn into our minds. Losing yourself in loving another is one of the greatest losses we can experience. because we become invisible to our eyes.

To truly love others, you need solid self-love. which in turn relies on the custom of value ourselves beyond error and reproach. Only in this way can we give our best; Otherwise, we will give ourselves half-heartedly, with gaps and emotional needs that we will expect others to cover.

The inner strength

“The world breaks us all, and afterward, many are strong in the broken places.”

We all break at certain moments, we fall to pieces and believe that it is impossible to get back up, to rebuild ourselves. But that’s when we have to resort to our inner strength, the one that remains dormant when everything is going well.

Despite misfortunes, breakups, losses and bad times, there is always the possibility of recovering, of moving forward accumulating ingenuity and will. Because if anyone has to put a floor to the fall and find ledges that allow us to get back up, it is us.

Cowardice as an illusion

“Cowardice… is almost always a simple inability to stop the functioning of the imagination.”

The ghosts from which fear is born are often just illusions that levitate in our minds. Thus, many of the people we consider brave are not people who actually have a higher value, but rather people who are intelligent when it comes to dealing with the thoughts they themselves generate.

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The useless worry

“Worry a little every day and you will lose a couple of years in life. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But be prepared not to worry: worry never fixes anything.”

This is another of Ernest Hemingway’s phrases that we need to remember most every day. Worrying is equivalent to wasting time, wasting life. Because what good is it for us to go around and around instead of acting?

If there is the possibility of taking the step, of acting to solve what worries us, we better take a step forward before we become completely filled with fears and fears. Immobility has never led to success. Therefore, let us worry more and worry less.

The constant option to try

“Before you react, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you criticize, wait. Before you give up, try it.”

Powerful phrase to stop our impulses and give reason a chance. It is better to calm the nerves and instant anger of the moment than to carry out actions that we will later regret.

As we see, Ernest Hemingway’s phrases constitute, like a compass, a wonderful thread to reflect on life, relationships and self-love, both for what they say and for what they inspire. Words to turn to every time we need them because of what they remind us of.