Juan Ramón Jiménez quotes

Juan Ramón Jiménez was a Spanish poet who played a key role in the literary movement known as Modernismo. His lyrical and introspective works greatly influenced Spanish poetry in the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his poetic mastery. Here are 25 of his quotes:

If they give you ruled paper, write the other way. (Juan Ramón Jiménez)
Literature is a state of culture, poetry is a state of grace, before and after culture. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Sharp nostalgia, infinite And terrible, for what I already possess! View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
I am not I. I am this one walking beside me whom I do not see, whom at times I manage to visit, and whom at other times I forget; who remains calm and silent while I talk, and forgives, gently, when I hate, who walks where I am not, who will remain standing when I die. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Back of my forehead I feel tonight A whole sky full of stars. Under a western moon. Life is indeed lovely! View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
A permanent state of transition is man's most noble condition. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
I unpetalled you, like a rose, to see your soul, and I didn't see it. But everything around -horizons of land and of seas-, everything, out to the infinite, was filled with a fragrance, enormous and alive. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
I have a feeling that my boat has struck, down there in the depths, against a great thing. And nothing happens! Nothing ... Silence ... Waves. - Nothing happens? Or Has everything happened, and we are standing now, quietly, in the new life? View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
This short book, where joy and sadness are twins, like the ears of Platero, was written for ... I have no idea for whom! ... For whomever lyric poets write ... View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Platero is a small donkey, a soft, hairy donkey: so soft to the touch that he might be said to be made of cotton, with no bones. Only the jet mirrors of his eyes are hard like two black crystal scarabs. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
They should call the good man an ass! They should call the bad ass a man! ]]Ironically]] ... to speak thus of you, so smart, friend of the old and the young, of the stream and the butterfly, of the sun and the dog, of the flower and the moon, patient and thoughtful, melancholic and lovable, the Marcus Aurelius of the fields... (Juan Ramón Jiménez)
...Perhaps this momentary life of ours is only the light that divides our infinite origin from our infinite end. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
To live is nothing more than to come here to die, to be what we were before being born, but with apprenticeship, experience, knowledge of cause, and perhaps with will. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Love, you are eternal like springtime. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
A fantasy can be equivalent to a paradise and if the fantasy passes, better yet, because eternal paradise would be very boring. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Dusk falls. There is nothing gentle about the sky. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
One must speak in such a way that although someone else, or many others, or an infinite number of people have said it before, it seems as though you said it first. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Transition is a complete present which unites the past and the future in a momentary progressive ecstasy, a progressive eternity, a true eternity of eternities, eternal moments. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
He is as loving and tender as a child, but strong and sturdy as a rock. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Dynamic ecstasy is absolute romanticism, absolute heroism. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Island of grace, of freshness and of joy, Golden Age of children; always I could find you in my life, a sea of mourning. (Juan Ramón Jiménez)
And the food for the soul passes, candid and free, without paying tribute to the customs. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Dynamic ecstasy is absolute romanticism, absolute heroism. And here I return to my point. From my point of view, after the catastrophe which we feel and think is universal, a catastrophe resulting from an excess of useless dynamism of useless progress, of useless realism, of useless technology, after this an unattainable democracy is to be reached through the conception and realization of a new romanticism. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
A permanent state of transition is man's most noble condition. When we say an artist is in a state of transition, many believe that we are belittling. In my opinion when people speak of an art of transition this indicates a better art and the best that art can give. Transition is a complete present which unites the past and the future in a momentary progressive ecstasy, a progressive eternity, a true eternity of eternities, eternal moments. Progressive ecstasy is above all dynamic; movement is what sustains life and true death is nothing but lack of movement, be the corpse upright or supine. Without movement life is annihilated, within and without, for lack of dynamic cohesion. But the dynamism should be principally of the spirit, of the idea, it should be a moral dynamic ecstasy, dynamic in relation to progress, ecstatic in relation to permanence. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez
The man wants to stick his iron pick in the little basket, and I do not prevent him. I open the knapsack, and he sees nothing in it. And the food for the soul passes, candid and free, without paying tribute to the customs. View quote
Juan Ramón Jiménez