Gabriela Mistral Quotes

Many things can wait. Children cannot. Today their bones are being formed, their blood is being made, their senses are being developed. To them we cannot say "tomorrow." Their name is today.

You shall create beauty not to excite the senses but to give sustenance to the soul.

Love beauty it is the shadow of God on the universe

Speech is our second possession, after the soul-and perhaps we have no other possession in this world.

Love that stammers, that stutters, is apt to be the love that loves best.

What the soul is to the body, so is the artist to his people.

The poet is an untier of knots, and love without words is a knot, and it drowns.

There is the joy of being healthy and fair, but there is overall the beauty, the immense joy of being useful.

Let the earth look at me, and bless me, for now I am fecund and sacred, like the palms and the furrows.

I have all that I lost and I go carrying my childhood like a favorite flower that perfumes my hand.

Now my belly is as noble as my heart.

All night I have suffered; all night my flesh has trembled to bring forth its gift. The sweat of death is on my forehead; but it is not death, it is life!

For me, religiosity is ... the constant remembrance of the presence of the soul.

Let the radiance of my enthusiasms envelop the poor courtyard and the bare classroom. Let my heart be a stronger column and my goodwill purer gold than the columns and gold of rich schools.

Now I am nothing but a veil; all my body is a veil beneath which a child sleeps.

My grief and my smile begin in your face, my son.

I have a faithful joy and a joy that is lost. One is like a rose, the other, a thorn. The one that was stolen I have not lost.

Many things we need can wait. The child cannot. Now is the time his bones are formed, his mind developed. To him we cannot say tomorrow, his name is today.

You shall create beauty not to excite the sensesbut to give sustenance to the soul.