ernest hemingway travel quotes

Ernest Hemingway’s Guide to Life, In 15 Quotes

Though he made his living as a writer, Ernest Hemingway was just as famous for his lust for adventure. Whether he was running with the bulls in Pamplona, fishing for marlin in Bimini, throwing back rum cocktails in Havana, or hanging out with his six-toed cats in Key West, the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author never did anything halfway. And he used his adventures as fodder for the unparalleled collection of novels, short stories, and nonfiction books he left behind, The Sun Also Rises , A Farewell to Arms , Death in the Afternoon , For Whom the Bell Tolls , and The Old Man and the Sea among them.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING

"I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen."

"The way to make people trust-worthy is to trust them."

"Never [go] on trips with anyone you do not love."

ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INTELLIGENCE AND HAPPINESS

"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."

"There's no one thing that is true. They're all true."

ON SUFFERING FOR YOUR ART

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."

ON TAKING ACTION

"Never confuse movement with action."

ON GETTING WORDS OUT

"I wake up in the morning and my mind starts making sentences, and I have to get rid of them fast—talk them or write them down."

ON THE BENEFITS OF SLEEP

"I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?"

ON THE TRUE NATURE OF WICKEDNESS

"All things truly wicked start from innocence."

ON WRITING WHAT YOU KNOW

"If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water."

ON THE PAINFULNESS OF BEING FUNNY

"A man's got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book."

ON KEEPING PROMISES

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."

ON GOOD VS. EVIL

"About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after."

ON REACHING FOR THE UNATTAINABLE

"For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed."

75 Best Ernest Hemingway Quotes (About Life, Writing, War…)

Ernest Hemingway was an American journalist, short-story writer, and novelist. His works and writing style greatly influenced many writers in the 20th century.

Hemingway began his career in writing at the age of seventeen as a journalist for a newspaper in Kansas City. Though, he had already shown the potential of his writing prowess during high school. His career, however, was put to a halt at the start of World War I. During the war, he worked as an ambulance driver, stationed at Italy.

For the majority of his adulthood, Hemingway lived in Paris with his first of four wives. In Paris, he met fellow writers Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce among others. Hemingway occasionally traveled as a journalist and stayed in Spain, Cuba, and Africa for a time.

In 1954, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. However, the following years was the start of his health’s deterioration. Hemingway was hospitalized multiple times and received electroshock treatments. And in the early hours of July 2, 1961, he died after shooting himself.

Several of his works–three novels, four short-story collections, and three non-fiction books–were published posthumously.

Awaken your inner writer as you read some of the best Ernest Hemingway quotes and sayings that explore his thoughts on life, writing, war, and more.

Table of Contents

Ernest Hemingway Quotes About Life

Ernest hemingway quotes about writing, ernest hemingway quotes about war, more ernest hemingway quotes and sayings.

1. “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

2. “The man who has begun to live more seriously within begins to live more simply without.”

3. “I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?”

4. “Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”

5. “All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.”

1. “If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.”

2. “I’m not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy.”

3. “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”

4. “It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.”

5. “All our words from loose using have lost their edge.”

6. “I always rewrite each day up to the point where I stopped. When it is all finished, naturally you go over it. You get another chance to correct and rewrite when someone else types it, and you see it clean in type. The last chance is in the proofs. You’re grateful for these different chances.”

7. “You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or, rather, you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love.”

8. “My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.”

9. “Things may not be immediately discernible in what a man writes, and in this sometimes he is fortunate; but eventually they are quite clear, and by these and the degree of alchemy that he possesses, he will endure or be forgotten.”

10. “There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.”

11. “You see, I am trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across – not to just depict life – or criticize it – but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me, you actually experience the thing. You can’t do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful.”

12. “A man’s got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.”

13. “Never confuse movement with action.”

14. “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

15. “On the ‘Star,’ you were forced to learn to write a simple declarative sentence. This is useful to anyone. Newspaper work will not harm a young writer and could help him if he gets out of it in time.”

16. “A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.”

17.  “Pound’s crazy. All poets are. They have to be. You don’t put a poet like Pound in the loony bin.”

18. “Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it.”

19. “For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.”

20. “I rewrote the ending to ‘Farewell to Arms,’ the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied.”

21. “I don’t like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can’t do it.”

22. “I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.”

23. “From things that have happened and from things as they exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality.”

24. “For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.”

25. “Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt, use it-don’t cheat with it.”

26. “I’ve tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I’m afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.”

27. “Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.”

1. “Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

2. “The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.”

3. “Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.”

4. “Wars are caused by undefended wealth.”

5. “When you go to war as a boy, you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed, not you… Then, when you are badly wounded the first time, you lose that illusion, and you know it can happen to you.”

6. “Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”

7. “In modern war… you will die like a dog for no good reason.”

8. “For a war to be just three conditions are necessary – public authority, just cause, right motive.”

1. “Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.”

2. “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”

3. “When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.”

4. “Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.”

5. “Hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age.”

6. “When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.”

7. “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”

8. “The game of golf would lose a great deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green.”

9. “The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.”

10. “That terrible mood of depression of whether it’s any good or not is what is known as The Artist’s Reward.”

11. “Cowardice… is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend functioning of the imagination.”

12. “I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”

13. “You’re beautiful, like a May fly.”

14. “Time is the least thing we have of.”

15. “That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best – make it all up – but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.”

16. “I love to go to the zoo. But not on Sunday. I don’t like to see the people making fun of the animals, when it should be the other way around.”

17. “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”

18. “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.”

19. “Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”

20. “Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter’s honor.”

21. “Why should anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure?”

22. “All good books have one thing in common – they are truer than if they had really happened.”

23. “There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.”

24. “An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.”

25. “Courage is grace under pressure.”

26. “Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts.”

27. “There is no friend as loyal as a book.”

28. “As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.”

29. “There is no lonelier man in death, except the suicide, than that man who has lived many years with a good wife and then outlived her. If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it.”

30. “The only thing that could spoil a day was people. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”

31. “Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.”

32. “I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.”

33. “When I have an idea, I turn down the flame, as if it were a little alcohol stove, as low as it will go. Then it explodes and that is my idea.”

34. “Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.”

35. “All things truly wicked start from innocence.”

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Ernest Hemingway

1899–1961 American Journalist, Novelist and Writer

Ernest Hemingway Quotes

A man’s got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.

All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.

Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.

Courage is grace under pressure.

Easy writing makes hard reading.

Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.

God knows, people who are paid to have attitudes toward things, professional critics, make me sick.

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?

It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

Never confuse movement with action.

Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl.

That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best — make it all up — but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life — and one is as good as the other.

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

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50 inspiring travel quotes

Sometimes all it takes is the written word to lift your soul from the humdrum of everyday life. These are the wordsmiths that can take you by the hand and induce the most severe sense of wanderlust, taking you to the edge of the world - and back.

'Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.' Ernest Hemingway

'A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.' John A. Shedd

'A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.' Lao Tzu

'People don't take trips… trips take people.' John Steinbeck

'Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.' Lawrence Block

'Once a year, go somewhere you have never been before.' Dalai Lama

' Paris is always a good idea.' Audrey Hepburn

'Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.' Jack Kerouac

'Not until we are lost do we begin to find ourselves.' Henry David Thoreau

'Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.' Benjamin Disraeli

'Don't tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have travelled.' Mohammed

'A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.' George Moore

'All that is gold does not glitter; just as not all those who wander are lost.' JRR Tolkien

'Travel is the only thing you can buy that makes you richer.' Author unknown

'I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.' Oscar Wilde

'If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people , you might better stay home.' James Michener

'It is better to travel well than to arrive.' Buddha

'Travel makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.' Thomas Fuller

'I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.' George Bernard Shaw

'All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware.' Martin Buber

'Journeys end in lovers meeting.' William Shakespeare

'Great things are done when men and mountains meet.' William Blake

'If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.' Cesare Paves

'He who is outside his door has the hardest part of his journey behind him.' Dutch Proverb

'The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.' Gilbert K. Chesterton

'Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.' Ralph Waldo Emerson

'This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England .' William Shakespeare

'There are no foreign lands. It is the traveller only who is foreign.' Robert Louis Stevenson

'He who does not travel does not know the value of men.' Moorish proverb

'Curiosity is the one thing invincible in nature.' Freya Stark

'The most effective way to do it, is to do it.' Amelia Earhart

'No one realises how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.' Lin Yutang

'For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.' Robert Louis Stevenson

'One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.' Henry Miller

'A traveller without observation is a bird without wings.' Saadi Shirazi

'A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.' Tim Cahill

'As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.' Virginia Woolf

'The Earth is what we all have in common.' Wendell Berry

'To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.' Aldous Huxley

'Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.' Paul Theroux

'The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.' Rudyard Kipling

'No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.' Lewis Carroll

'It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.' Ursula K. Le Guin

'Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not.' William James

'A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.' John Steinbeck

'We hit the sunny beaches where we occupy ourselves keeping the sun off our skin, the saltwater off our bodies, and the sand out of our belongings.' Erma Bombeck

'Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.' Greg Anderson

'Adventures do occur, but not punctually.' E.M. Forster

'Vacation: a period of travel and relaxation when you take twice the clothes and half the money you need.' Author unknown

Like this? Now read: Books that make you want to travel

Ambassadors recommend one book to read before visiting their country

48 people changing the way we travel

Table of Contents

34 Ernest Hemingway quotes about travel, love, life, writing and more

Ernest Hemingway, born 1899, was an American journalist, novelist, writer, and traveller. 

His works are still widely read today.  Below are his best quotes which revolve around the subjects of travel, love, life, writing, war and much more. 

Share these quotes from Hemingway

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02 Aug 5 Ernest Hemingway Quotes to Guide Your Sun Valley Vacation

Ernest Miller Hemingway: novelist, poet, journalist, adventurer, war veteran, Nobel Prize winner.

One of America’s most celebrated literary sons, and interred less than 90 seconds walk away from Knob Hill Inn.

Walk in Ernest Hemingway’s very talented and fascinating footsteps for a day in Ketchum with our Hemingway for a Day package.

Visit his grave, where you can leave a penny as tribute.

Dine at one of his favorite haunts, Michel’s Christiania , and enjoy delectable French cuisine.

Last, but certainly not least, use his wisdom to help you get the most out of your Sun Valley vacation.

Here are 5 Hemingway quotes to get you started on your way.

1) “Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.”

Don’t get us wrong: solo vacations are great. Beholden to no one or nothing but your own free spirit, spend your days whatever it is your heart desires.

However, there’s something equally special about spending time off with those you love. For trips taken together, cooperation and togetherness are their own rewards.

And when you spend the day hiking in a place as gorgeous as Sun Valley, it always makes it that much sweeter to have some to savor the view with at the end of the day.

2) “Time is the least thing we have of.”

A roundabout way to say it, but true nonetheless.

As much we would care not to think of it, the fact remains: vacations don’t last forever.

Sooner than you might expect, it will be time to return to the real world and the daily grind. In light of that fact, there’s only one thing to do:

Live it up while vacation lasts! Add as much fun to your days as possible.

Note that doesn’t mean you have to be sprinting about from one activity to the other.

Whether it’s biking through Idaho back country or lounging by the pool, pack as much fun into the hours you have.

Leave a penny as tribute.

3) “You see, I am trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across – not to just depict life – or criticize it – but to actually make it alive.”

Simply substitute “travels” for “stories.”

In writing and in traveling, we are all trying to feel alive. Except with traveling, our audience is only ourselves and those we bring along with us (that is, if you exclude social media posts from the equation…).

Much how Hemingway wrote to make his thoughts and stories alive, we travel to make ourselves feel alive.

Thankfully, in a place like Sun Valley, feeling alive is quite the attainable objective.

4) It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters in the end.”

Remember that whole bit about not having much time, and spending the time you have to the fullest?

More carpe diem -style words of wisdom to live by. Except this time, it’s an encouragement to take pleasure in the journey to your destination.

The long car rides. Waiting in the airport terminal. Looking out the window on the train.

It’s all part of the journey. While those places may not be your ultimate destination, take what pleasure in them you can, and remind yourself of where they lead.

5) “My only regret in life is that I did not drink more wine.”

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered .

STAY LONGER AND SAVE

Extend your Sun Valley getaway and save 15% off the Best Flexible Rate when you stay three nights or 20% off when you stay four or more!

50 Profound Ernest Hemingway Quotes

Welcome to an exploration of thought and language like no other – a journey through 50 profound Ernest Hemingway quotes. These aren't just run-of-the-mill utterances, no; they're words that breathe life, wisdom, and a raw sense of reality, echoing the mind of one of the 20th century's most influential authors . Hemingway, renowned for his laconic style, always had a knack for conveying great depth with a few carefully chosen words. If you're a lover of literature, an aspiring writer, or someone seeking timeless wisdom, you're in the right place to unearth the gems of Hemingway's legacy .

Ernest Hemingway , a man who wrote as vigorously as he lived, was never one to shy away from sharing his wisdom, experiences, or insights. His words, much like his novels, encapsulated the essence of the human condition in a world often unforgiving. One particular story that echoes Hemingway's insightful nature was when he once won a bet at a bar by crafting a six-word story – “For sale: baby shoes, never worn” – proving that brevity can indeed carry a profound message. As we immerse ourselves in these Ernest Hemingway quotes, we'll glimpse the man behind the myth – his struggles, triumphs, and his grasp of life and all its complexities. So, buckle up for a literary ride as we dive into the world of profound Ernest Hemingway quotes.

The Essence of Life

1. “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”

2. “Courage is grace under pressure.”

3. “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”

4. “Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”

5. “There is no friend as loyal as a book.”

6. “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

7. “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”

8. “When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”

9. “I drink to make other people more interesting.”

10. “I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?”

Related Article: 50 Nautical Herman Melville Quotes

Love and Relationships

• “The only thing that could spoil a day was people. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
• “I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”
• “Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.”
• “The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.”
• “When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.”
• “But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
• “You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”
• “In order to write about life first, you must live it.”
• “An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.”
• “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

On Writing and Creativity

• “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
• “Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.”
• “The first draft of anything is shit.”
• “A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it.”
• “All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened.”
• “My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.”
• “All our words from loose using have lost their edge.”
• “Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only death can stop it.”
• “You must be prepared to work always without applause.”
• “The writer's job is not to judge, but to seek to understand.”

Related Article: 50 Dark Nathaniel Hawthorne Quotes

Battles and Defeats

• “But life isn't hard to manage when you've nothing to lose.”
• “Death is like an old whore in a bar–I'll buy her a drink but I won't go upstairs with her.”
• “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
• “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
• “Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”
• “It's none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.”
• “Never confuse movement with action.”
• “Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”
• “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
• “Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”

Reflections and Observations

• “It's silly not to hope. It's a sin he thought.”
• “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
• “In modern war… you will die like a dog for no good reason.”
• “I know now that there is no one thing that is true – it is all true.”
• “There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.”
• “I still need more healthy rest in order to work at my best. My health is the main capital I have and I want to administer it intelligently.”
• “All things truly wicked start from innocence.”
• “You are so brave and quiet I forget you are suffering.”
• “What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.”
• “Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.”

Related Article: 50 Southern William Faulkner Quotes

Chris Ventura

50 jazz age f. scott fitzgerald quotes: reveling in the rhythms of an iconic era, 50 dark nathaniel hawthorne quotes.

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The 49 Best Ernest Hemingway Quotes

Hemingway’s short, punchy writing lends itself to great quotations.

Here we have a curated collection of some of the best Hemingway quotes we could find. From the The Sun Also Rises to Death in the Afternoon Hemingway is motivational, manly , drunk, and ever to the point.

I drink to make other people more interesting.

When you stop doing things for fun you might as well be dead.

We’re stronger in the places that we’ve been broken.

God knows I didn’t mean to fall in love with her.

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.

And you’ll always love me won’t you? Yes. And the rain won’t make any difference? No.

No one you love is ever truly lost.

Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry: Worry never fixes anything.

The things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist.

The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

Courage is grace under pressure.

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.

There’s no one thing that’s true. It’s all true.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

There is no friend as loyal as a book.

Cowards die a thousand deaths, but the brave only die once.

You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.

As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.

What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.

To hell with them. Nothing hurts if you don’t let it.

Never to go on trips with anyone you do not love.

Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today.

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.

Being against evil doesn’t make you good.

If two people love each other, there can be no happy end to it.

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

The only thing that could spoil a day was people. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.

The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.

I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.

For what are we born if not to aid one another?

The first draft of anything is shit.

The shortest answer is doing the thing.

A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it.

Wine is the most civilized thing in the world.

All thinking men are atheists.

Death is like an old whore in a bar–I’ll buy her a drink but I won’t go upstairs with her.

Develop a built-in bullshit detector.

Isn’t it pretty to think so.

Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already?

Never sit a table when you can stand at the bar.

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Motivational And Inspirational Quotes

55 Ernest Hemingway Quotes About Life, Love, & Writing

• February 3, 2024
• Inspirational Quotes

Ernest Hemingway is one of the most famous and celebrated American writers of the 20th century known for his unique style of writing, adventurous life, and profound contributions to literature. Here are the best Ernest Hemingway quotes about life, love , success , friendship , death, and writing.

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1953) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (1954) for his novel The Old Man and the Sea.

His prose writing style is simple and natural and has the effect of directness, clarity, and freshness. Many have referred to this style as the iceberg theory, a simple style of writing that reveals minimum on the surface with the deeper meaning of the story hiding below.

He often wrote on universal themes of courage, love, war, and the human condition, drawing from his own experiences as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War and World War II.

Hemingway has published seven novels, six short-story collections, and two nonfiction works. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.

Some of his notable works apart from “The Old Man and the Sea,” include novels like “The Sun Also Rises,” “A Farewell to Arms,” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

His adventurous lifestyle where he traveled widely for skiing, bullfighting, fishing, and hunting became the background for much of his writing adding authenticity to his work.

His distinctive style and themes have established him as a literary icon, and his legacy endures as readers continue to cherish his work.

These inspirational Ernest Hemingway quotes will help you introspect deep into every aspect of your life and inspire you to live life to the fullest .

Top 10 Ernest Hemingway Quotes

• “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with that there is.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.” — Ernest Hemingway

Famous Quotes By Ernest Hemingway

• “The first draft of anything is shit.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.” —  Ernest Hemingway
• “As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “I never had to choose a subject—my subject rather chose me.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “Cowardice… is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend functioning of the imagination.” — Ernest Hemingway

Best Of Hemingway Quotes

• “All thinking men are atheists .” — Ernest Hemingway
• “Every day above earth is a good day.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “All good books have one thing in common – they are truer than if they had really happened.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “The only thing that could spoil a day was people. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” — Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway Quotes About Love & Life

• “Never confuse movement with action.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “You never understand anybody that loves you.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “All stories, if continued far enough, end in death.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “But life isn’t hard to manage when you’ve nothing to lose.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry: Worry never fixes anything.” — Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway Quotes On Success

• “I drink to make other people more interesting.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?” —  Ernest Hemingway
• “An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “The rain will stop, the night will end, the hurt will fade. Hope is never so lost that it can’t be found.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “So far, about morals , I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other. ” — Ernest Hemingway
• “The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.” — Ernest Hemingway

Inspirational Ernest Hemingway Quotes

• “The writing is the only progress you make.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “In order to write about life first you must live it.” —  Ernest Hemingway
• “You are so brave and quiet. I forget you are suffering.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “We would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.” — Ernest Hemingway
• “I don’t want you to go away. I just said that. You go if you want to. But hurry right back. Why, darling, I don’t live at all when I’m not with you.” — Ernest Hemingway

What are your favorite Ernest Hemingway quotes and sayings listed above? If there is a quote that we’ve missed then let us know in the comments section what your thoughts are.

If liked reading the above inspirational quotes then check out our collection of Mark Twain quotes and Charles Bukowski quotes to get motivated and inspired.

So, feel free to share with friends and family on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, and more to spread positive vibes.

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Ernest Hemingway Inspiring Quotes

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The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?

Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.

The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.

The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

The shortest answer is doing the thing.

Man is not made for defeat.

The thing is to become a master and in your old age to acquire the courage to do what children did when they knew nothing.

As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.

But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

Dying was nothing and he had no picture of it nor fear of it in his mind. But living was a field of grain blowing in the wind on the side of a hill. Living was a hawk in the sky. Living was an earthen jar of water in the dust of the threshing with the grain flailed out and the chaff blowing. Living was a horse between your legs and a carbine under one leg and a hill and a valley and a stream with trees along it and the far side of the valley and the hills beyond.

The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it.

The first draft of anything is sh*t.

There's no one thing that's true. It's all true.

Why should anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure?

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Ernest Hemingway

• Born: July 21, 1899
• Died: July 2, 1961
• Occupation: Author
• Cite this Page: Citation

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