Take bread away from me, if you wish, take air away, but do not take from me your laughter.
Interpretation
Laughter is essential for happiness and connection, more so than material needs.
In this quote, Pablo Neruda emphasizes the profound importance of joy and laughter in life. He suggests that while physical necessities like food and air are vital for survival, the emotional sustenance provided by laughter and companionship is even more critical for a fulfilled life. This reflects the deep human need for connection, happiness, and the lightness that laughter brings to our existence.
In practice
Use this quote as a toast at a gathering to highlight the importance of joy in relationships.
Perhaps this war will pass like the others which divided us leaving us dead, killing us along with the killers but the shame of this time puts its burning fingers to our faces. Who will erase the ruthlessness hidden in innocent blood?
I want to see the thirst inside the syllables I want to touch the fire in the sound: I want to feel the darkness of the cry. I want words as rough as virgin rocks.β - Verb.
Only do not forget, if I wake up crying it's only because in my dream I'm a lost child hunting through the leaves of the night for your hands.
And here am I, budding among the ruins with only sorrow to bite on, as if weeping were a seed and I the earth's only furrow.
Once more I am the silent one who came out of the distance wrapped in cold rain and bells: I owe to earth's pure death the will to sprout.
I learned about life from life itself, love I learned in a single kiss and could teach no one anything except that I have lived with something in common among men.
This is how moths speak to each other. They tell their love across the fields by scent. There is no mouth, the wrong words are impossible, either a mate is there or he is not, and if so the pair will find each other in the dark.
True happiness is found in unselfish Love, A love which increases in proportion as it is shared.
But love, Iβve come to understand, is more than three words mumbled before bedtime. Love is sustained by action, a pattern of devotion in the things we do for each other every day.
A strange, terrific force unlike anything I've ever experienced is sprouting in my heart, taking root there, growing. Shut up behind my rib cage, my warm heart expands and contracts independent of my will--over and over.
Dear Valentine, I love you. Whoever you are.
You are a fountain of the sun's light. I am a willow shadow on the ground. You make my raggedness silky.
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