Antonio Machado Quotes

What does one day matter! Yesterday stands poised
to face tomorrow, tomorrow faces the infinite:"

-from "The Iberian God

Life is the path you beat while you walk it.

Pathmaker, there is no path;
You make the path by walking,
By walking you make the Path

Only a fool thinks price and value are the same.

The unpublished manuscript is like an uncon-fessed sin that festers in the soul, corrupting and contaminating it.

My soul is not asleep. It is awake, wide awake. It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches, its eyes wide open far-off things, and listens at the shores of the great silence.

I love Jesus, who said to us: Heaven and earth will pass away. When heaven and earth have passed away, my word will remain. What was your word, Jesus? Love? Forgiveness? Affection? All your words were one word: Wakeup.

Hell is the bloodcurdling mansion of time, in whose profoundest circle Satan himself waits, winding a gargantuan watch in his hand.

Look for your other half
Who walks along next to you,
And tends to be what you aren't.

At the very smallest wheel of our reasoning it is possible for a handful of questions to break the bank of our answers.

Mankind owns four things
That are no good at sea:
Rudder, anchor, oars,
And the fear of going down.

It is good knowing that glasses are to drink from;
the bad thing is not to know what thirst is for.

The only living language is the language in which we think and have our being.

Between living and dreaming there is a third thing. Guess it.

My philosophy is fundamentally sad, but I'm not a sad man, and I don't believe I sadden anyone else. In other words, the fact that I don't put my philosophy into practice saves me from its evil spell, or, rather, my faith in the human race is stronger then my intellectual analysis of it; there lies the fountain of youth in which my heart is continually bathing.

Has my heart gone to sleep?
Have the beehives of my dreams
stopped working, the waterwheel
of the mind run dry,
scoops turning empty,
only shadow inside?
No, my heart is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
Not asleep, not dreaming
its eyes are opened wide
watching distant signals, listening
on the rim of vast silence

Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road-- Only wakes upon the sea.

Caminante, son tus huellas el camino, y nada más; caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar. Al andar se hace camino, y al volver la vista atrás se ve la senda que nunca se ha de volver a pisar. Caminante, no hay camino, sino estelas en la mar.

Walk through life in dreams out of love of the hand that leads us.

While the burning fish is tracing his arc
near the cypress, beneath the highest blue of all,
and the blind boy flies away in the white stone,
and the ivory poem of the green cicada
beats and reverberates in the elm,
let us give honor to the Lord
the black mark of his good hand
who has arranged for silence in all this noise.
Honor to the god of distance and of absence,
ff the anchor in the sea - the open sea ...
He frees us from the world - it's everywhere
he opens roads for us to walk on.
With our cup of darkness filled to the brim,
with our heart that always knows some hunger,
let us give honor to the Lord who created the zero
and carved our thought out of the block of faith.

Like an abandoned dog who cannot find
a smell or a track and roams
along the roads, with no road, like
the child who in a night of the fair
gets lost among the crowd,
and the air is dusty, and the candles
fluttering,
astounded, his heart
weighed down by music and by pain;
that's how I am, drunk, sad by nature,
a mad and lunar guitarist, a poet,
and an ordinary man lost in dreams,
searching constantly for God among the mists.

Beyond living and dreaming there is something more important: waking up.

I.
Don't trace out your profile
forget your side view
all that is outer stuff.
II.
Look for your other half
who walks always next to you
and tends to be who you aren't.

Wherever learning breeds specialists, the sum of human culture is enhanced thereby. That is the illusion and consolation of specialists.

Beware of the community in which blasphemy does not exist: underneath, atheism runs rampant.

And when the day arrives for the final voyage
and the ship of no return is set to sail,
you'll find me aboard, traveling light,
almost naked, like the children of the sea.

When the I AM THAT I AM made nothing
And rested, which rest it certainly deserved,
Night now accompanied day, and man
Had his friend in the absence of the woman.

The afternoon is bright, with spring in the air, a mild March afternoon, with the breath of April stirring, I am alone in the quiet patio looking for some old untried illusion - some shadow on the whiteness of the wall some memory asleep on the stone rim of the fountain, perhaps in the air the light swish of some trailing gown.

Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante, no hay camino
sino estelas en la mar."


Traveler, your footprints
are the only road, nothing else.
Traveler, there is no road;
you make your own path as you walk.
As you walk, you make your own road,
and when you look back
you see the path
you will never travel again.
Traveler, there is no road;
only a ship's wake on the sea.

Translated by Mary G. Berg and Dennis Maloney

Traveler, there is no path, the path must be
forged as you walk.

The absence of vices adds so little to the sum of one's virtues.

Man's passion for truth is such that he will welcome the bitterest of all postulates so long as it strikes him as true.

Death is something we shouldn't fear because, while we are, death isn't, and when death is, we aren't.

There are a lot of doubts over the size and effect of new competitors in the cellular sector.

No one can shed light on vices he does not have or afflictions he has ever experienced.

In order to write poetry, you must first invent a poet who will write it.

I've caught a glimpse of him in dreams:
expert hunter of himself,
every minute in ambush.

Dream-travelers, there is no path, paths are made by dreaming.

The wind, one brilliant day, called
to my soul with an odor of jasmine.
"In return for the odor of my jasmine,
I'd like all the odor of your roses."
"I have no roses; all the flowers
in my garden are dead."
"Well then, I'll take the withered petals
and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain."
the wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself:
"What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?

XXIX Traveler, there is no path. The path is made by walking. Traveller, the path is your tracks And nothing more. Traveller, there is no path The path is made by walking. By walking you make a path And turning, you look back At a way you will never tread again Traveller, there is no road Only wakes in the sea.

I thought my fire was out,
and stirred the ashes ... .
I burnt my fingers.

Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking.

All uncertainty is fruitfull ... so long as it is accompanied by the wish to understand