pablo neruda Quotes That Will Inspire You to Live Your Best Life

1. Amor"So many days, oh so many daysseeing you so tangible and so close,how do I pay, with what do I pay?The bloodthirsty springhas awakened in the woods.The foxes start from their earths,the serpents drink the dew,and I go with you in the leavesbetween the pines and the silence,asking myself how and whenI will have to pay for my luck.Of everything I have seen,it's you I want to go on seeing:of everything I've touched,it's your flesh I want to go on touching.I love your orange laughter.I am moved by the sight of you sleeping.What am I to do, love, loved one?I don't know how others loveor how people loved in the past.I live, watching you, loving you.Being in love is my nature.You please me more each afternoon.Where is she? I keep on askingif your eyes disappear.How long she's taking! I think, and I'm hurt.I feel poor, foolish and sad,and you arrive and you are lightningglancing off the peach trees.That's why I love you and yet not why.There are so many reasons, and yet so few,for love has to be so,involving and general,particular and terrifying,joyful and grieving,flowering like the stars,and measureless as a kiss.That's why I love you and yet not why.There are so many reasons, and yet so few,for love has to be so,involving and general,particular and terrifying,joyful and grieving,flowering like the stars,and measureless as a kiss. Intimacies: Poems of Love

2. And I, infinitesima­l being, drunk with the great starry void, likeness, image of mystery, I felt myself a pure part of the abyss, I wheeled with the stars, my heart broke loose on the wind. 100 Love Sonnets

3. As if you were on fire from within.The moon lives in the lining of your skin.

4. By night, Love, tie your heart to mine, and the two together in their sleep will defeat the darkness 100 Love Sonnets

5. Don't go far off, not even for a day,because I don't know how to say it - a day is longand I will be waiting for you, as inan empty station when the trains areparked off somewhere else, asleep.Don't leave me, even for an hour, because thenthe little drops of anguish will all run together,the smoke that roams looking for a home will driftinto me, choking my lost heart.Oh, may your silhouette never dissolveon the beach, may your eyelids never flutterinto the empty distance. Don't LEAVE me fora second, my dearest, because in that moment you'llhave gone so far I'll wander mazilyover all the earth, asking, will youcome back? Will you leave me here, dying?

6. I am no longer in love with her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

7. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars, and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance." The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights like this, I held her in my arms. I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her. How could I not have loved her large, still eyes? I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her. To hear the immense night, more immense without her. And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass. What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her. The night is full of stars and she is not with me. That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away. My soul is lost without her. As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her. My heart searches for her and she is not with me. The same night that whitens the same trees. We, we who were, we are the same no longer. I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her. My voice searched the wind to touch her ear. Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once belonged to my kisses. Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes. I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her. Love is so short and oblivion so long. Because on nights like this I held her in my arms, my soul is lost without her. Although this may be the last pain she causes me, and this may be the last poem I write for her.

8. I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps. 100 Love Sonnets

9. I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps. I hunger for your sleek laugh, your hands the color of a savage harvest, hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails, I want to eat your skin like a whole almond. I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body, the sovereign nose of your arrogant face, I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes, and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight, hunting for you, for your hot heart, Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

10. I do not love you except because I love you;I go from loving to not loving you,From waiting to not waiting for youMy heart moves from cold to fire.I love you only because it's you the one I love;I hate you deeply, and hating youBend to you, and the measure of my changing love for youIs that I do not see you but love you blindly.Maybe January light will consumeMy heart with its cruelRay, stealing my key to true calm.In this part of the story I am the one whoDies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

11. I have named you queen.There are taller than you, taller.There are purer than you, purer.There are lovelier than you, lovelier.But you are the queen.When you go through the streetsNo one recognizes you.No one sees your crystal crown, no one looksAt the carpet of red goldThat you tread as you pass,The nonexistent carpet.And when you appearAll the rivers soundIn my body, bellsShake the sky,And a hymn fills the world.Only you and I,Only you and I, my love,Listen to it. Love Poems

12. I have named you queen.There are taller than you, taller.There are purer than you, purer.There are lovelier than you, lovelier.But you are the queen.When you go through the streetsNo one recognizes you.No one sees your crystal crown, no one looksAt the carpet of red goldThat you tread as you pass,The nonexistent carpet.And when you appearAll the rivers soundIn my body, bellsShake the sky,And a hymn fills the world.Only you and I,Only you and I, my love,Listen to it. Love Poems

13. I love you as certain dark things are loved, secretly, between the shadow and the soul. 100 Love Sonnets

14. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul. 100 Love Sonnets

15. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close. 100 Love Sonnets

16. I want you to knowone thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine. If You Forget Me

17. I wantTo do with you what spring does with the cherry trees. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

18. If You Forget MeI want you to knowone thing.You know how this is:if I lookat the crystal moon, at the red branchof the slow autumn at my window,if I touchnear the firethe impalpable ashor the wrinkled body of the log,everything carries me to you,as if everything that exists,aromas, light, metals,were little boatsthat sailtoward those isles of yours that wait for me.Well, now,if little by little you stop loving meI shall stop loving you little by little.If suddenlyyou forget medo not look for me,for I shall already have forgotten you.If you think it long and mad,the wind of bannersthat passes through my life,and you decideto leave me at the shoreof the heart where I have roots,rememberthat on that day,at that hour,I shall lift my armsand my roots will set offto seek another land.Butif each day,each hour,you feel that you are destined for mewith implacable sweetness,if each day a flowerclimbs up to your lips to seek me,ah my love, ah my own,in me all that fire is repeated,in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,my love feeds on your love, beloved,and as long as you live it will be in your armswithout leaving mine.

19. In this part of the story I am the one whodies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,because I love you, Love, in fire and in blood. 100 Love Sonnets

20. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Love

21. Love! Love until the night collapses! Machu Picchu

22. Love.Because of you, in gardens of blossomingFlowers I ache from the perfumes of spring.I have forgotten your face, I no longerRemember your hands; how did your lipsFeel on mine?Because of you, I love the white statuesDrowsing in the parks, the white statues thatHave neither voice nor sight.I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice;I have forgotten your eyes.Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound toMy vague memory of you. I live with painThat is like a wound; if you touch me, you willMake to me an irreperable harm.Your caresses enfold me, like climbingVines on melancholy walls.I have forgotten your love, yet I seem toGlimpse you in every window.Because of you, the heady perfumes ofSummer pain me; because of you, I againSeek out the signs that precipitate desires:Shooting stars, falling objects.

23. Take bread away from me, if you wish,take air away, butdo not take from me your laughter.Do not take away the rose,the lance flower that you pluck,the water that suddenlybursts forth in joy,the sudden waveof silver born in you.My struggle is harsh and I come backwith eyes tiredat times from having seenthe unchanging earth,but when your laughter entersit rises to the sky seeking meand it opens for me allthe doors of life.My love, in the darkesthour your laughteropens, and if suddenlyyou see my blood stainingthe stones of the street,laugh, because your laughterwill be for my handslike a fresh sword.Next to the sea in the autumn,your laughter must raiseits foamy cascade,and in the spring, love,I want your laughter likethe flower I was waiting for,the blue flower, the roseof my echoing country.Laugh at the night,at the day, at the moon,laugh at the twistedstreets of the island,laugh at this clumsyfool who loves you,but when I openmy eyes and close them,when my steps go,when my steps return,deny me bread, air,light, spring,but never your laughter.

24. Then I speak to her in a language she has never heard, I speak to her in Spanish, in the tongue of the long, crepuscular verses of Díaz Casanueva; in that language in which Joaquín Edwards preaches nationalism. My discourse is profound; I speak with eloquence and seduction; my words, more than from me, issue from the warm nights, from the many solitary nights on the Red Sea, and when the tiny dancer puts her arm around my neck, I understand that she understands. Magnificent language! Passions and Impression

25. Then love knew it was called love. And when I lifted my eyes to your name, suddenly your heart showed me my way Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada; Cien sonetos de amor

26. Tonight I can write the saddest linesI loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

27. Well, nowIf little by little you stop loving meI shall stop loving youLittle by littleIf suddenly you forget meDo not look for meFor I shall already have forgotten youIf you think it long and mad the wind of banners that passes through my lifeAnd you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have rootsRememberThat on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my armsAnd my roots will set off to seek another land Selected Poems

28. With a chaste heart With pure eyes I celebrate your beautyHolding the leash of bloodSo that it might leap out and trace your outline Where you lie down in my Ode As in a land of forests or in surfIn aromatic loam, or in sea musicBeautiful nudeEqually beautiful your feetArched by primeval tap of wind or soundYour ears, small shellsOf the splendid American seaYour breasts of level plentitudeFulfilled by living lightYour flying eyelids of wheatRevealing or enclosingThe two deep countries of your eyesThe line your shoulders have divided into pale regionsLoses itself and blends into the compact halves of an apple Continues separating your beauty down into two columns ofBurnished goldFine alabasterTo sink into the two grapes of your feetWhere your twin symmetrical tree burns again and risesFlowering fireOpen chandelierA swelling fruit Over the pact of sea and earth From what materialsAgate?Quartz?Wheat?Did your body come together?Swelling like baking bread to signal silvered hills The cleavage of one petal Sweet fruits of a deep velvet Until alone remainedAstonished The fine and firm feminine form It is not only light that falls over the world spreading inside your bodyYet suffocate itselfSo much is clarity Taking its leave of youAs if you were on fire within The moon lives in the lining of your skin.

29. You are like nobody since I love you.

30. A book,a book fullof human touches,of shirts,a bookwithout loneliness, with menand tools,a bookis victory. Odes to Common Things