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
- “Courage is grace under pressure.” — Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway Quotes - “There is no friend as loyal as a book.” — Ernest Hemingway
Quotes Of Ernest Hemingway - “We are all broken—that’s how the light gets in.” — Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway Quotes About Life - “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” — Ernest Hemingway
Quotes From Ernest Hemingway - “When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” — Ernest Hemingway
Famous Hemingway Quotes - “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” — Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway Love Quotes - “You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.” — Ernest Hemingway
Best 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
Conclusion
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.
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