Miguel de Unamuno Quotes

Without ceasing the will, I mean the will never to die, the spirit of unsubmissiveness to death, labours to build up the house of life, and without ceasing the keen blasts and stormy assaults of reason beat it down.[De continuo la voluntad, quiero decir, la voluntad de no morirse nunca, la irresignación a la muerte, fragua la morada de la vida, y de continuo la razón la está abatiendo con vendavales y chaparrones.]

While men believe themselves to be seeking truth for its own sake, they are in fact seeking life in truth.[Los hombres mientras creen que buscan la verdad por ella misma, buscan de hecho la vida en la verdad.]

Whenever a man talks he lies, and so far as he talks to himself… that is to say, so far as he thinks, knowing that he thinks… he lies to himself.[El hombre en cuanto habla miente, y en cuanto se habla a sí mismo, es decir, en cuanto piensa sabiendo que piensa, se miente.]

What we believe to be the motives of our conduct are usually but the pretexts for it.[Los que creemos móviles de nuestra conducta no suelen ser sino pretextos.]

We men do nothing but lie and make ourselves important. Speech was invented for us to magnify all of our sensations and impressions… perhaps so that we could believe in them.[No hacemos más que mentir y darnos importancia. La palabra se hizo para exagerar nuestras sensaciones e impresiones todas…, acaso para creerlas.]

We die of cold and not of darkness. It is not the night kills, but the frost.[Nos morimos de frío y no de oscuridad. La noche no mata; mata el hielo.]

Until one cries real tears one never knows whether one has a soul or not.[Hasta que se llora de veras no se sabe si se tiene o no alma.]

True science teaches, above all, to doubt and to be ignorant; advocacy neither doubts nor believes that it does not know. It requires a solution.[La verdadera ciencia enseña, ante todo, a dudar y a ignorar; la abogacía ni duda ni cree que ignora. Necesita de una solución.]

To understand is to forgive, they say. No, to forgive is to understand. First comes love and then understanding.[Conocer es perdonar, dicen. No, perdo-nar es conocer. Primero el amor, el conocimiento después.]

To love with the spirit is to pity, and he who pities most loves most.[Amar en espíritu es compadecer, y quien más compadece más ama.]

To fall into a habit is to begin to cease to be.[Acostumbrarse es ya empezar a no ser.]

Those who say that they believe in God and yet neither love nor fear Him, do not in fact believe in Him but in those who have taught them that God exists, and these in their turn often enough do not believe in Him either. Those who believe that they believe in God, but without any passion in their heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God-Idea, not in God Himself.[Los que dicen creer en Dios, y ni le aman ni le temen, no creen en El, sino en aquellos que les han enseñado que Dios existe, los cuales, a su vez con harta frecuencia, tampoco creen en El. Los que sin pasión de ánimo, sin congoja, sin incertidumbre, sin duda, sin la desesperación en el consuelo, creen creer en Dios, no creen sino en la idea Dios, mas no en Dios mismo.]