150 Pablo Neruda Quotes: Beautiful Lines on Love, Nature & Life

You will find his celebrated love sonnets alongside odes to everyday things, the haunting “Keeping Quiet” and the playful questions of his Book of Questions. Four widely-circulating lines are marked “Attributed to Pablo Neruda” where no primary source exists.

The English renderings below follow the standard translations of Stephen Tapscott, W.S. Merwin, Robert Bly and Donald D. Walsh.

Editor’s Picks: 11 Essential Pablo Neruda Quotes

Pablo Neruda Quotes on Love & Passion

Sonnet XVII, the 100 Love Sonnets and the Twenty Love Poems made Neruda the world’s most quoted poet of passion. These are his most burning lines on desire, devotion and heartbreak.

1. “I do not love you except because I love you.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
2. “Love! Love until the night collapses!” — Pablo Neruda
3. “The light wraps you in its mortal flame.” — Pablo Neruda
4. “I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
5. “A bough of fruit falls from the sun on your dark garment.” — Pablo Neruda
6. “So close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
7. “Thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
8. “The great roots of night grow suddenly from your soul.” — Pablo Neruda
9. “Oh to follow the road that leads away from everything, without anguish, death, winter waiting along it with their eyes open through the dew.” — Pablo Neruda
10. “Every day you play with the light of the universe.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
11. “Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
12. “Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
13. “Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
14. “Ah, let me remember you as you were before you existed.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
15. “Tonight I can write the saddest lines.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
16. “What can I say without touching the earth with my hands?” — Pablo Neruda
17. “Is there anything sillier in life than to be called Pablo Neruda?” — Pablo Neruda
18. “I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
19. “Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
20. “My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
21. “How could one not have loved her great still eyes.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
22. “To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
23. “I have gone marking the atlas of your body with crosses of fire.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
24. “Naked, you are as simple as one of your hands, smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
25. “You have moon-lines, apple-paths: naked you are slender as a naked grain of wheat.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
26. “Naked, you are blue as the night in Cuba; you have vines and stars in your hair.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
27. “When I die, I want your hands on my eyes.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
28. “I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands to pass their freshness over me one more time.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
29. “Your breast is enough for my heart, and my wings for your freedom.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
30. “What was sleeping above your soul will rise out of my mouth to heaven.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
31. “Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. W.S. Merwin
32. “In one kiss, you’ll know all I haven’t said.” — Attributed to Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda Quotes on Nature & the Sea

Neruda grew up by the Pacific, and the sea runs through everything he wrote. These lines gather his odes, his ocean poems and his luminous nature imagery.

1. “I need the sea because it teaches me.” — Pablo Neruda
2. “I don’t know if I learn music or awareness: if it’s a single wave or its vast existence.” — Pablo Neruda
3. “Ah the vastness of pines, the murmur of waves breaking.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
4. “Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets towards your oceanic eyes.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
5. “The night is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
6. “The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
7. “The same night whitening the same trees.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
8. “The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
9. “The birds go by, fleeing. The wind. The wind.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
10. “The rain takes off her clothes.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
11. “Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
12. “I have seen from my window the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
13. “Sometimes a piece of sun burned like a coin in my hand.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
14. “We have lost even this twilight.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
15. “No one saw us this evening hand in hand while the blue night dropped on the world.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
16. “Always, always you recede through the evenings.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
17. “The book fell that always closed at twilight, and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
18. “Girl lithe and tawny, the sun that forms the fruits, that plumps the grains, that curls seaweeds filled my body with joy.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
19. “I remember you as you were in the last autumn. You were the grey beret and the still heart.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
20. “In your eyes the light of the dusk fought, and the leaves fell in the water of your soul.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
21. “When I look once more at the sea, does the sea see me or not see me?” — Pablo Neruda
22. “The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. W.S. Merwin
23. “The moon turns its clockwork dream.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. W.S. Merwin
24. “Beauty is twice beauty and what is good is doubly good when it is a matter of two socks made of wool in winter.” — Pablo Neruda
25. “Maru Mori brought me a pair of socks which she knitted herself with her sheep-herder’s hands.” — Pablo Neruda
26. “Onion, luminous flask, your beauty was formed petal by petal.” — Pablo Neruda
27. “The street filled with tomatoes, midday, summer, light is halved like a tomato.” — Pablo Neruda
28. “The animals were imperfect, long of tail, unfortunate of head.” — Pablo Neruda
29. “The artichoke of a tender heart went to war dressed as a warrior.” — Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda Quotes on Life & Solitude

From the surreal streets of “Walking Around” to the stillness of “Keeping Quiet,” these are Neruda’s lines on being alone, being human and going on.

1. “It so happens I am sick of being a man.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. W.S. Merwin
2. “And it so happens I am sick of my feet and my nails and my hair and my shadow.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. W.S. Merwin
3. “I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes, my rage, forgetting everything.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. W.S. Merwin
4. “The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse sobs.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Robert Bly
5. “The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Robert Bly
6. “Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still.” — Pablo Neruda
7. “For once on the face of the earth let’s not speak in any language, let’s stop for one second, and not move our arms so much.” — Pablo Neruda
8. “It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines, we would all be together in a sudden strangeness.” — Pablo Neruda
9. “Fishermen in the cold sea would not harm whales and the man gathering salt would look at his hurt hands.” — Pablo Neruda
10. “Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas, wars with fire, victory with no survivors, would put on clean clothes and walk about with their brothers in the shade, doing nothing.” — Pablo Neruda
11. “What I want should not be confused with total inactivity. Life is what it is about; I want no truck with death.” — Pablo Neruda
12. “If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving, and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death.” — Pablo Neruda
13. “Perhaps the earth can teach us as when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive.” — Pablo Neruda
14. “Now I’ll count up to twelve and you keep quiet and I will go.” — Pablo Neruda
15. “My dog has died. I buried him in the garden next to a rusted old machine.” — Pablo Neruda
16. “Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom where my dog waits for my arrival waving his fan-like tail in friendship.” — Pablo Neruda
17. “I, the materialist, who never believed in any promised heaven in the sky for any human being, I believe in a heaven I’ll never enter.” — Pablo Neruda
18. “I have been a lucky man. To feel the intimacy of brothers is a marvelous thing in life.” — Pablo Neruda
19. “I was lonely as a tunnel. The birds fled from me, and night swamped me with its crushing invasion.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
20. “To survive myself I forged you like a weapon, like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
21. “Why does the hat of night fly so full of holes?” — Pablo Neruda
22. “My rough peasant’s body digs in you and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
23. “In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
24. “Why do the waves ask me the same questions I ask them?” — Pablo Neruda
25. “My sight searches for her as though to go to her.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
26. “Someday, somewhere — anywhere, unfailingly, you’ll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.” — Attributed to Pablo Neruda
27. “A child who does not play is not a child, but the man who doesn’t play has lost forever the child who lived in him and who he will miss terribly.” — Attributed to Pablo Neruda
28. “How do we thank the clouds for their fleeting abundance?” — Pablo Neruda
29. “They can cut all the flowers, but they won’t stop the spring.” — Attributed to Pablo Neruda
30. “Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig and lifted its quivering to my lips.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott

Pablo Neruda Quotes on Poetry & Art

Neruda’s Nobel lecture, his ars-poetica poem “Poetry” and the playful Book of Questions — his finest lines on the craft itself.

1. “Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread.” — Pablo Neruda
2. “There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are.” — Pablo Neruda
3. “On our earth, before writing was invented, before the printing press was invented, poetry flourished.” — Pablo Neruda
4. “The poet is not a “little god.”” — Pablo Neruda
5. “I have often maintained that the best poet is he who prepares our daily bread: the nearest baker who does not imagine himself to be a god.” — Pablo Neruda
6. “And it was at that age… Poetry arrived in search of me.” — Pablo Neruda
7. “I don’t know, I don’t know where it came from, from winter or a river.” — Pablo Neruda
8. “There I was without a face and it touched me.” — Pablo Neruda
9. “I did not know what to say, my mouth had no way with names, my eyes were blind, and something started in my soul, fever or forgotten wings, and I made my own way, deciphering that fire.” — Pablo Neruda
10. “And I, infinitesimal being, drunk with the great starry void, likeness, image of mystery, felt myself a pure part of the abyss, I wheeled with the stars, my heart broke loose on the wind.” — Pablo Neruda
11. “And suddenly I saw the heavens unfastened and open, planets, palpitating plantations, shadow perforated, riddled with arrows, fire and flowers, the winding night, the universe.” — Pablo Neruda
12. “I wrote the first faint line, faint, without substance, pure nonsense, pure wisdom of someone who knows nothing.” — Pablo Neruda
13. “And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
14. “Write, for example, ‘The night is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance.’” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
15. “Am I allowed to ask my book whether it’s true I wrote it?” — Pablo Neruda
16. “Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer, and these the last verses that I write for her.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
17. “Tell me, is the rose naked or is that her only dress?” — Pablo Neruda
18. “Why doesn’t Thursday talk itself into coming after Friday?” — Pablo Neruda
19. “Who shouted with glee when the color blue was born?” — Pablo Neruda
20. “Is there anything in the world sadder than a train standing in the rain?” — Pablo Neruda
21. “Why do trees conceal the splendor of their roots?” — Pablo Neruda
22. “What did the rubies say standing before the juice of pomegranates?” — Pablo Neruda
23. “If the color yellow runs out, with what will we make bread?” — Pablo Neruda
24. “Where is the center of the sea? Why do the waves never break there?” — Pablo Neruda
25. “Why did the grove undress itself only to wait for the snow?” — Pablo Neruda
26. “Who hears the regrets of the thieving automobile?” — Pablo Neruda
27. “How many questions does a cat have?” — Pablo Neruda
28. “Why do leaves commit suicide when they feel yellow?” — Pablo Neruda
29. “If all rivers are sweet, where does the sea get its salt?” — Pablo Neruda
30. “What is it that upsets the volcanoes that spit fire, cold and rage?” — Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda Quotes on Wisdom & Longing

The Heights of Macchu Picchu, “If You Forget Me” and “Your Laughter” — Neruda at his most universal, on brotherhood, loss and longing.

1. “Rise up to be born with me, my brother.” — Pablo Neruda
2. “Give me your hand from the depths sown by your sorrows.” — Pablo Neruda
3. “I come to speak for your dead mouths.” — Pablo Neruda
4. “Stone upon stone, and man, where was he?” — Pablo Neruda
5. “Through the night of stone, let me plunge my hand, and let my heart beat like a bird caught in a trap for a thousand years.” — Pablo Neruda
6. “From the air to air, like an empty net, I went between the streets and the atmosphere.” — Pablo Neruda
7. “You will ask: and where are the lilacs? And the poppy-petalled metaphysics?” — Pablo Neruda
8. “Come and see the blood in the streets. Come and see the blood in the streets. Come and see the blood in the streets!” — Pablo Neruda
9. “And one morning all that was burning, one morning the bonfires leapt out of the earth devouring human beings.” — Pablo Neruda
10. “Jackals that the jackals would despise, stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out, vipers that the vipers would abominate!” — Pablo Neruda
11. “Face to face with you I have seen the blood of Spain tower like you to fill you in one wave of pride and knives!” — Pablo Neruda
12. “I hunger for your mouth, your voice, your hair.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
13. “And I go through the streets without food, silent, for the bread does not feed me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
14. “Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost, I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
15. “Don’t go far off, not even for a day, because — because — I don’t know how to say it: a day is long and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
16. “Before I loved you, love, nothing was my own: I wavered through the streets, among objects.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
17. “The morning is full of storm in the heart of summer.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
18. “I want you to know one thing.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Donald D. Walsh
19. “Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Donald D. Walsh
20. “If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Donald D. Walsh
21. “You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Donald D. Walsh
22. “But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Donald D. Walsh
23. “If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Donald D. Walsh
24. “Take bread away from me, if you wish, take air away, but do not take from me your laughter.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
25. “Do not take away the rose, the lance-flower that you pluck, the water that suddenly bursts forth in joy.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
26. “My struggle is harsh and I come back with eyes tired at times from having seen the unchanging earth, but when your laughter enters it rises to the sky seeking me.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
27. “Laugh at the night, at the day, at the moon, laugh at the twisted streets of the island, laugh at this clumsy boy who loves you.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
28. “Next to the sea in autumn, your laughter must raise its foamy cascade.” — Pablo Neruda, trans. Stephen Tapscott
29. “Where does the rainbow end, in your soul or on the horizon?” — Pablo Neruda

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Pablo Neruda’s most famous love quote?

Among his most quoted lines are “I do not love you except because I love you” (Sonnet LXVI) and “Tonight I can write the saddest lines” (Poem XX), both included in this collection of pablo neruda quotes.

What did Pablo Neruda say about the sea?

His most famous sea line is “I need the sea because it teaches me,” from “On the Blue Shore of Silence.” The sea appears across his work as teacher, mirror and home.

Did Pablo Neruda really say “They can cut all the flowers, but they won’t stop the spring”?

The line is widely shared in his name, but no primary source has been found in his published works. In this collection it is honestly labeled “Attributed to Pablo Neruda.”

What is a famous Pablo Neruda quote about poetry?

From his 1971 Nobel lecture: “Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread.”

More to Explore

• Love quotes for every kind of romance
• Romantic love quotes for deep connection
• Short love quotes for quick inspiration
• Ocean quotes on the sea’s wild beauty
• Moon quotes for night dreamers
• Rain quotes on storms and renewal
• Deep quotes that make you think
• Sad quotes for heavy hearts
• Life quotes on the human journey
• Walt Whitman quotes on nature and the soul
• Emily Dickinson quotes on life and death
• Robert Frost quotes on nature and choices
• Khalil Gibran quotes on love and wisdom
• Sylvia Plath quotes on emotion and imagery