The Ultimate List of Ernest Hemingway Quotes

Ernest Hemingway is one of the greatest authors of all time. In fact, when you think of classic literature, Mr. Hemingway may well be one of the first authors that come to mind.

Hemingway rose in popularity as a writer in the early 20th century, but his legacy continues to live on in this work.

From The Old Man and the Sea to The Sun Also Rises, many of Hemingway’s novels are considered some of the best books of all time.

Hemingway may have been a bit of a cynic, but he also believed in living a bold and well-lived life.

He believed in the virtues of courage and dreaming big. And much of his work embodies these virtues.

His protagonists were often a paradox of strong masculinity balanced by an emotional disposition. A character not too unlike Hemingway himself.

To celebrate an author who changed the way we look at literature forever, here are 30 of the best Ernest Hemingway quotes about life, love, dreaming, and writing.

30 Best Ernest Hemingway Quotes

In order to write about life first you must live it.

Ernest Hemingway

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

Ernest Hemingway

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

Ernest Hemingway

When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.

Ernest Hemingway

So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

Ernest Hemingway

Courage is grace under pressure.

Ernest Hemingway

When you stop doing things for fun you might as well be dead.

Ernest Hemingway

Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those swallows when the ocean can be so cruel.

Ernest Hemingway

Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the romance of the unusual.

Ernest Hemingway

Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.

Ernest Hemingway

If you have a success you have it for the wrong reasons. If you become popular it is always because of the worst aspects of your work.

Ernest Hemingway

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.

Ernest Hemingway

To be a successful father… there’s one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don’t look at it for the first two years.

Ernest Hemingway

That terrible mood of depression of whether it’s any good or not is what is known as The Artist’s Reward.

Ernest Hemingway

The only thing that could spoil a day was people. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.

Ernest Hemingway

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

Ernest Hemingway

Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.

Ernest Hemingway

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

Ernest Hemingway

Never mistake motion for action.

Ernest Hemingway

I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?

Ernest Hemingway

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

Ernest Hemingway

Life should never daunt you. Never be daunted. It’s the secret of my success. I’ve never been daunted. Never been daunted in public.

Ernest Hemingway

Don’t judge a man by his friends. Remember that the friends of Judah were impeccable.

Ernest Hemingway

I did not care what it was all about. All I wanted to know was how to live in it. Maybe if you found out how to live in it, you learned what it was all about.

Ernest Hemingway

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

Ernest Hemingway

A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

Ernest Hemingway

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end

Ernest Hemingway

As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.

Ernest Hemingway

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.

Ernest Hemingway

It’s enough for you to do it once for a few men to remember you. But if you do it year after year, then many people remember you and they tell it to their children, and their children and grandchildren remember and, if it concerns books, they can read them. And if it’s good enough, it will last as long as there are human beings.

Ernest Hemingway

What books did Ernest Hemingway write?

Ernest Hemingway wrote a total of 24 books, although several of those were published posthumously.

A known perfectionist, it’s nearly impossible to know what Hemingway wrote in his lifetime that was never published.

Here are the top books by Ernest Hemingway, in chronological order.

• Three Stories and Ten Poems, 1923
• The Torrents of Spring, 1926
• The Sun Also Rises, 1926
• Men Without Women, 1927
• A Farewell To Arms, 1929
• Death In The Afternoon, 1932
• Winner Takes Nothing, 1933
• Green Hills of Africa, 1935
• To Have and Have Not, 1927
• To Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940
• Across the River and Into the Trees, 1950
• The Old Man and the Sea, 1952
• A Moveable Feast, 1964
• Islands in the Stream, 1970
• The Dangerous Summer, 1985
• The Garden of Eden, 1986

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