Poets From Spain

"Worldly people are in the habit of censuring those who give themselves up in earnest to God, regarding them as extravagant, in their withdrawal from the world, and in their manner of life. They say also of them that they are useless for all matters of importance, and lost to everything the world prizes and respects! This reproach the soul meets in the best way; boldly and courageously despising it with everything else that the world can lay to its charge. Having attained to a living love of God, it makes little account of all this; and that is not all: it confesses it itself in this stanza, and boasts that it has committed that folly, and that it is lost to the world and to itself for the Beloved."

"He who loves is not ashamed before men of what he does for God, neither does he hide it through shame though the whole world should condemn it."

"When a soul has advanced so far on the spiritual road as to be lost to all the natural methods of communing with God; when it seeks Him no longer by meditation, images, impressions, nor by any other created ways, or representations of sense, but only by rising above them all, in the joyful communion with Him by faith and love, then it may be said to have found God of a truth, because it has truly lost itself as to all that is not God, and also as to its own self."

"Blessed are they who, setting aside their own pleasure and inclination, consider things according to reason and justice before doing them."

"Deny your desires and you will find what your heart longs for. For how do you know if any desire of yours is according to God?"

"One human thought alone is worth more than the entire world, hence God alone is worthy of it."

"The very pure spirit does not bother about the regard of others or human respect, but communes inwardly with God, alone and in solitude as to all forms, and with delightful tranquility, for the knowledge of God is received in divine silence."

"If you wish to attain holy recollection, you will do so not by receiving but by denying."

"Souls will be unable to reach perfection who do not strive to be content with having nothing, in such fashion that their natural and spiritual desire is satisfied with emptiness; for this is necessary in order to reach the highest tranquility and peace of spirit. Hence the love of God in the pure and simple soul is almost continually in act."

"Although you perform many works, if you do not deny your will and submit yourself, losing all solicitude about yourself and your affairs, you will not make progress."

"If you desire to discover peace and consolation for your soul and to serve God truly, do not find your satisfaction in what you have left behind, because in that which now concerns you you may be as impeded as you were before, or even more. But leave as well all these other things and attend to one thing alone that brings all these with it (namely, holy solitude, together with prayer and spiritual and divine reading), and persevere there in forgetfulness of all things."

"Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved."

"Not all the faculties and senses have to be employed in things, but only those that are required; as for the others, leave them unoccupied for God."

"The soul that desires God to surrender himself to it entirely must surrender itself entirely to him without keeping anything for itself."

"Strive to preserve your heart in peace; let no event of this world disturb it; reflect that all must come to an end."

"Whoever flees prayer flees all that is good."

"Live as though only God and yourself were in this world, so that your heart may not be detained by anything human."

"It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that the verse and prose works combined of St. John of the Cross form at once the most grandiose and the most melodious spiritual canticle to which any one man has ever given utterance. The most sublime of all the Spanish mystics, he soars aloft on the wings of Divine love to heights known to hardly any of them. . . . True to the character of his thought, his style is always forceful and energetic, even to a fault. When we study his treatises — principally that great composite work known as the Ascent of Mount Carmel and the Dark Night — we have the impression of a mastermind that has scaled the heights of mystical science; and from their summit looks down upon and dominates the plain below and the paths leading upward.… Nowhere else, again, is he quite so appealingly human; for, though he is human even in his loftiest and sublimest passages, his intermingling of philosophy with mystical theology; makes him seem particularly so. These treatises are a wonderful illustration of the theological truth that grace far from destroying nature, ennobles and dignifies it, and of the agreement always found between the natural and the supernatural — between the principles of sound reason and the sublimest manifestations of Divine grace."

"May, 1993 — Stratford... have been reading through the poetry of 15th century Spain, and I find myself drawn to one by the mystic writer and visionary St. John of the Cross; the untitled work is an exquisite, richly metaphoric love poem between himself and his god. It could pass as a love poem between any two at any time … His approach seems more akin to early Islamic or Judaic works in its more direct route to communication to his god... I have gone over three different translations of the poem, and am struck by how much a translation can alter our interpretation. Am reminded that most holy scriptures come to us in translation, resulting in a diversity of views."

"St John of the Cross is like a sponge full of Christianity: you can squeeze it all out and the full mystical theory remains. Consequently, for fifteen years or so I hated St. John of the Cross and called him a Buddhist. I loved St. Theresa and read her again and again. She is first a Christian, only secondarily a mystic. Then I found that I had wasted fifteen years so far as prayer was concerned."

"I before Thy greatness Stand, and am afraid:— All my secret thoughts Thine eye beholdeth Deep within my bosom laid."

"In seeking wisdom, the first step is silence; the second, listening; the third, remembering; the fourth practicing; the fifth, teaching others"

"Out of the Spanish poets, I love Antonio Machado. Juan Ramón Jiménez was my mentor, and I loved him, but Antonio Machado—I feel him more."

"Estos días azules y este sol de infancia"

"Caminante, son tus huellas el camino, y nada más; caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar. Al andar se hace camino, y al volver la vista atrás se ve la senda que nunca se ha de volver a pisar. Caminante, no hay camino, sino estelas en la mar."

"The biography of Cervantes provides an extremely typical example of what could befall a man living during the transition from romantic chivalry to realism. Without knowing this story it is impossible to appreciate Don Quixote sociologically. ... The parodying of chivalry was no new thing in his lifetime ... In Italy, where knighthood was represented to some extent by middle-class elements, the new chivalry did not take itself quite seriously. It was doubtless here, that Cervantes was prepared for his sceptical attitude, here in the home of liberalism and humanism, and it was to Italian literature that he probably owed the first suggestion for his epoch-making joke. His work was not intended, however, merely to take a rise out of the artificial and mechanical novels of fashion, nor to become merely a criticism of out-of-date chivalry, but also to be an indictment of the world of the disenchanted, matter-of-fact reality, in which there was nothing left for an idealist but to dig himself in behind his idée fixe. The novelty in Cervantes' work was, therefore, not the ironic treatment of the chivalrous attitude to life, but the relativizing of the two worlds of romantic idealism and realistic rationalism. What was new was the indissoluble dualism of his world-view, the idea of the impossibility of realizing the idea in the world of reality and of reducing reality to the idea. ... He wavers between the justification of un-worldly idealism and of worldly-wise common sense. From that arises his own conflicting attitude toward his hero. Before Cervantes there had only been good and bad characters, deliverers and traitors, saints and blasphemers, in literature; here the hero is saint and fool in one and the same person."

"The Golden Age of Spain (mid-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries) saw a certain reaction against the generally antifemale attitude characteristic of the Middle Ages. Both Cervantes (1547-1616) and Lope de Vega (1562-1635) often depicted women not as weak, wicked, and lecherous, but as strong, heroic, and virtuous; and both admired their contemporary St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)..."

"Cervantes, Don Quixote — I read that every year, as some do the Bible."

"While clearly a masterpiece, Don Quixote suffers from one fairly serious flaw — that of outright unreadability. This reviewer should know, because he has just read it. ... Looming like one of the Don's chimerical adversaries, it is a giant...But the giant has a giant weight problem and is elderly, and soft-brained. Reading Don Quixote can be compared to an indefinite visit from your most impossible senior relative, with all his pranks, dirty habits, unstoppable reminiscences, and terrible cronies. When the experience is over, and the old boy checks out at last (on page 846 — the prose wedged tight, with no breaks for dialogue), you will shed tears all right; not tears of relief or regret but tears of pride. You made it, despite all that Don Quixote could do."

"Puede haber amor sin celos, pero no sin temores."

"Un buen arrepentimiento es la mejor medicina que tienen las enfermedades del alma."

"En los grandes perigros, la poca esperanza de vencerlos saca del ánimo desesperadas fuerzas."

"El andar en tierras y comunicar con diversas gentes, hace a los hombres discretos."

"Pocas o ninguna vez se cumple con la ambición que no sea con daño de tercero."

"Ambición es, pero ambiciòn generosa, la del que pretende mejorar su estado sin perjuicio de tercero."

"Mueren muchos más de los confiados que de los recatados."

"Vete a la lengua, que en ella consisten los mayores daños de la humana vida."

"Por las cosas que dicen que dije cuando loco, podéis considerar las que diré y haré cuando cuerdo."

"Los buenos artistas imitan la naturaleza; los malos, la vomitan."

"Yo no soy bueno para palacio, porque tengo vergüenza y no sé lisonjear."

"Se dará tiempo al tiempo, que suele dar dulce salida a muchas amargas difficultades."

"Aun entre los demonios hay unos peores que otros, y entre muchos malos hombres suele haber alguno bueno."

"Para con ella es de cera mi alma, donde podrá imprimir lo que quisiere, y para conservarlo y guardarlo, no será como impreso en cera, sino como esculpido en mámoles, cuya dureza se opone á la duración de los tiempos."

"No te asotiles tanto, que te despuntarás..."

"For if he like a madman lived, At least he like a wise one died."

"There is a strange charm in the thoughts of a good legacy, or the hopes of an estate, which wondrously alleviates the sorrow that men would otherwise feel for the death of friends."

"Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last."

"Every man was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth."

"He ... got the better of himself, and that's the best kind of victory one can wish for."

"He has done like Orbaneja, the painter of Ubeda, who, being asked what he painted, answered, "Whatever it may turn out." And if he chanced to paint a cock, he wrote under it, "This is a cock," lest the people should take it for a fox."