For Whom the Bell Tolls (Primary source)
Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, published in 1940, is a powerful and introspective novel set during the Spanish Civil War. The story follows Robert Jordan, an American volunteer fighting with the anti-fascist Republican forces. As a dynamiter assigned to blow up a bridge critical to an upcoming Republican offensive, Jordan’s mission becomes a lens through which Hemingway explores themes of duty, sacrifice, love, death, and the complex nature of war.
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“There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any to-morrow. How old must you be before you know that? There is only now, and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion. This is how you live a life in two days. And if you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life. A good life is not measured by any biblical span.”
Ernest Hemingway
“The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“Never to go on trips with anyone you do not love.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary sourceMore quotes by Ernest Hemingway →
“A life of leisure, and a life of laziness, are two things.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“All would live long, but none would be old.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“The years teach much which the days never know.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
— Marie Curie Disputed