16 Lessons for Life and Love from Ernest Hemingway

Anytime I find myself looking for inspiration in the world around me, there are always some go-to sources for enlightenment that never fail me. Sometimes, I turn to Confucius and his wisdom. Sometimes, I turn to Watts and his enlightenment. More often than not, I end up turning to Hemmingway, and his knife-edged honesty. The man simply had a way of saying something that hit you in the gut with a sensation not unlike drinking a shot of a well made whiskey. One of my favorites from Hemmingway has always been, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Such a wonderful talent…

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

“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?”

“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.”

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

“The first draft of anything is shit.”

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

“’Maybe…you’ll fall in love with me all over again.”
‘Hell,’ I said, ‘I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?’
‘Yes. I want to ruin you.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘That’s what I want too.’”

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

“I drink to make other people more interesting.”

“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.”

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

“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.”

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

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