Quotes from For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ernest Hemingway ·  471 pages

Rating: (216K votes)


“There's no one thing that's true. It's all true.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that? There is only now, and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion. This is how you live a life in two days. And if you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life. A good life is not measured by any biblical span.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“I loved you when I saw you today and I loved you always but I never saw you before.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“How little we know of what there is to know. I wish that I were going to live a long time instead of going to die today because I have learned much about life in these four days; more, I think than in all other time. I'd like to be an old man to really know. I wonder if you keep on learning or if there is only a certain amount each man can understand. I thought I knew so many things that I know nothing of. I wish there was more time.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“This was a big storm and he might as well enjoy it. It was ruining everything, but you might as well enjoy it”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls



“I had an inheritance from my father,
It was the moon and the sun.
And though I roam all over the world,
The spending of it’s never done.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“The world is a fine place and worth fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“For what are we born if not to aid one another?”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“No animal has more liberty than the cat, but it buries the mess it makes. The cat is the best anarchist.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“If we win here we will win everywhere. The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls



“There will always be people who say it does not exist because they cannot have it. But I tell you it is true and that you have it and that you are lucky even if you die tomorrow.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“He was just a coward and that was the worst luck any many could have.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“But did thee feel the earth move?”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“And another thing. Don’t ever kid yourself about loving some one. It is just that most people are not lucky enough ever to have it. You never had it before and now you have it. What you have with Maria, whether it lasts just through today and a part of tomorrow, or whether it lasts for a long life is the most important thing that can happen to a human being. There will always be people who say it does not exist because they cannot have it. But I tell you it is true and that you have it and that you are lucky even if you die tomorrow.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls



“For him it was a dark passage which led to nowhere, then to nowhere, then again to nowhere, once again to nowhere, always and forever to nowhere, heavy on the elbows in the earth to nowhere, dark, never any end to nowhere, hung on all time always to unknowing nowhere, this time and again for always to nowhere, now not to be borne once again always and to nowhere, now beyond all bearing up, up, up and into nowhere, suddenly, scaldingly, holdingly all nowhere gone and time absolutely still and they were both there, time having stopped and he felt the earth move out and away from under them.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“I love thee and thou art so lovely and so wonderful and so beautiful and it does such things to me to be with thee that I feel as though I wanted to die when I am loving thee.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“Do you know how an ugly woman feels? Do you know what it is to be ugly all your life and inside to feel that you are beautiful? It is very rare.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“But in the meantime all the life you have or ever will have is today, tonight, tomorrow, today, tonight, tomorrow, over and over again (I hope), ...”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“Oh, now, now, now, the only now, and above all now, and there is no other now but thou now and now is thy prophet.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls



“You never kill anyone you want to kill in a war, he said to himself.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“I am thee and thou art me and all of one is the other.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“Of all men the drunkard is the foulest. The thief when he is not stealing is like another. The extortioner does not practice in the home. The murderer when he is at home can wash his hands. But the drunkard stinks and vomits in this own bed and dissolves his organs in alcohol.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“Everything you have is to give. Thou art a phenomenon of philosophy and an unfortunate man.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls



“I am an old man who will live until I die," Anselmo said.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“I suppose if a man has something once, always something of it remains.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“If you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life. A good life is not measured by any biblical span.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


“But you have no house and no courtyard to your no-house, he thought. You have no family but a brother who goes to battle tomorrow and you own nothing but the wind and the sun and an empty belly. The wind is small, he thought, and there is no sun. You have four grenades in your pocket but they are only good to throw away. You have a carbine on your back but it is only good to give away bullets. You have a message to give away. And you're full of crap that you can give to the earth, he grinned in the dark. You can anoint it also with urine. Everything you have is to give. Thou art a phenomenon of philosophy and an unfortunate man, he told himself and grinned again.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls


About the author

Ernest Hemingway
Born place: in Oak Park, Illinois, The United States
Born date July 21, 1899
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