Cardenal Quotes & Sayings

We all share in the same cosmic rhythm ... For all natural laws are like the rhythm of the strings of the harp. — Ernesto Cardenal

All human eyes have longing in them. — Ernesto Cardenal

I am always wary of decisions made hastily. I am always wary of the first decision, that is, the first thing that comes to my mind if I have to make a decision. This is usually the wrong thing. I have to wait and assess, looking deep into myself, taking the necessary time. — Pope Francis

The revolution in Nicaragua was the first of its kind to be accomplished with the mass support of Christians, a fact that cannot fail to influence the further development of revolutionary movements in the whole of Latin America, whose inhabitants are predominantly Christian. — Ernesto Cardenal

I myself have never called what I write anti-poetry. I also think that my poetry should not be only known as the poetry of Ernesto Cardenal but rather as Nicaraguan poetry. — Ernesto Cardenal

Despite what you've read, your sadness is not beautiful. No one will see you in the bookstore, curled up with your Bukowski, and want to save you.
Stop waiting for a salvation that will not come from the grey-eyed boy looking for an annotated copy of Shakespeare,
for an end to your sadness in Keats.
He coughed up his lungs at 25, and flowery words cannot conceal a life barely lived.
Your life is fragile, just beginning, teetering on the violent edge of the world.
Your sadness will bury you alive, and you are the only one who can shovel your way out with hardened hands and ragged fingernails, bleeding your despair into the unforgiving earth.
Darling, you see, no heroes are coming for you. Grab your sword, and don your own armor. — Emily Palermo

I speak of the current civilization and I consider her not as a symbol but as victim-victim, really, of the commercialization, of the falsification of this real world. That is my theme. — Ernesto Cardenal

And although black civil rights leaders like to point to a supposedly racist criminal justice system to explain why our prisons house so many black men, it's been obvious for decades that the real culprit is black behavior - behavior too often celebrated in black culture. — Jason L. Riley

According to some liberation theologians atheism is not the cause of the conflict between Christianity and Marxism, but is rather the link between them. — Ernesto Cardenal

LIFE IS SUBVERSIVE — Ernesto Cardenal

Like a lover who spends all his time thinking of his distant love, God has been thinking of me since before I was born, for all eternity. — Ernesto Cardenal

If some beggar steals a bridle he'll be hung by a man who's stolen a horse. — Peire Cardenal

Travis' eyes turned soft, and the corners of his mouth turned up. Our friendship? Sometimes I wonder if you listen to me at all. — Jamie McGuire

I think that the proclamation of the Gospel is sometimes nearer to an atheistic point of view than to traditional religious attitudes. — Ernesto Cardenal

I began to write poetry when I was about four years old. In other words, I've always been writing poetry. — Ernesto Cardenal

You learn to read so you can identify the reality in which you live, so that you can become a protagonist history rather than a spectator Father Fernando Cardenal — Barbara Kingsolver

Life is bearable even when it's unbearable: that is what's so terrible, that is the unbearable thing about it. — Geoff Dyer

Some liberation theologians maintain that they are not influenced by Marxist philosophy at all. In this case it is necessary to discern whether they say this for tactical reasons, so as not to be compromised politically or whether they are really convinced that Marxism doesn't influence them in any way. I personally think that it is not possible to evade the influence of Marxism, as we cannot commit ourselves to the revolutionary struggle without drawing support from the conclusions of scientific socialism. — Ernesto Cardenal

I am not interested in poetry for poetry's sake. — Ernesto Cardenal

There is however difference between the theology of liberation and traditional theology, the latter being based primarily On the Word of God made incarnate in the Holy Scripture Liberation theology is of course also inspired by the Word, but its representatives are convinced that God also speaks to us in everyday events and that, for example, information obtained through the mass media can be a special way in which God speaks to us. — Ernesto Cardenal

To hate excellence is to hate the gods. — Mary Renault

Women overrate the influence of fine dress and the latest fashions upon gentlemen; and certain it is that the very expensiveness of such attire frightens the beholder from all ideas of matrimony. — Abba Louisa Goold Woolson

What if God wants us to be happy? What if there's nothing else around the bend? What if all our unhappiness is in the past and from here on out we get an uncomplicated life? Some people get that, you know. Why shouldn't it be us? — Cristina Henriquez

We turn outward, attracted by the beauty we see in created things without realizing that they are only a reflection of the real beauty. And the real beauty is within us. — Ernesto Cardenal

My poetry is not lyric. The epigrams are lyric because they come from my youthful period of lyricism, but my other poetry is not lyric. — Ernesto Cardenal

God may do something silly at any time, because, like any lover, God does not reason. God is drunk with love. — Ernesto Cardenal

I am not interested in an economic liberation of man without the liberation of the whole man. — Ernesto Cardenal

I hear it in the deep heart's core. — William Butler Yeats

It seems to me / the the great bards of the 20th century are in Publicity / those Keatses and Shelleys singing the Colgate smile / Cosmic Coca-Cola, the pause the refreshes, / the make of car that will take us to the land of happiness. — Ernesto Cardenal

Collaboration on a book is the ultimate unnatural act. — Tom Clancy

You can't be with God and be neutral. / True contemplation is resistance. And poetry, / gazing at clouds is resistance I found out in jail.
— Ernesto Cardenal

What Marxism calls atheism is basically the negation of an idol, which sometimes bears the name of God. — Ernesto Cardenal

Slogan-making is not poetry. — Ernesto Cardenal

I can't for the life of me see that by being permissive you actually assist anyone. — Jenny Shipley