Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Pedro Calderón de la Barca, fully Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño

Spanish Dramatist, Poet and Writer

"He who allows himself to be loved today will love tomorrow."

"Never confide your secrets to paper; it is like throwing a stone in the air; and if you know who throws the stone, you do not know where it may fall."

"Life is a Dream. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story, and the greatest good is little enough: for all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams."

"Nothing is absolute. There’s no need, nevertheless, to be very sure about things. It seems enough to know how to name them or somehow babble them into existence."

"No virtue can be real that has not been tried."

"All life is a dream. But whether it be dream or truths to do well is what matters. If it be truth, for truth's sake. If not, then to gain friends for the time when we awaken."

"A friar who asks alms for God's sake begs for two."

"A good action is never lost; it is a treasure laid up and guarded for the doer’s need. "

"All just laws condemn cruelty."

"All must yield to the weight of years; conquest is not difficult for time."

"And yet, and yet, in these our ghostly lives, Half night, half day, half sleeping, half awake, How if our waking life, like that of sleep, Be all a dream in that eternal life To which we wake not till we sleep in death. Life Is a Dream."

"Dreams are rough copies of the waking soul Yet uncorrected of the higher will, So that men sometimes in their dreams confess An unsuspected, or forgotten, self; -Since Dreaming, Madness, Passion, are akin In missing each that salutary rein Of reason, and the grinding will of man. "

"Great events have sent before them their announcements."

"Grief has been compared to a hydra; for every one that dies, two are born."

"How surely a knowledge of the world hardens the heart!"

"Love that is not madness is not love. "

"One may know how to gain victory, and know not how to use it. "

"The dower of great beauty has always been misfortune, since happiness and beauty do not agree together."

"The heart is an astrologer that always divines the truth."

"We pretend that we are; we are what we pretend."

"In this treacherous world nothing is the truth nor a lie. Everything depends on the color of the crystal through which one sees it. "

"Tis not where we lie but whence we fell; the loss of Heaven's the greatest pain in Hell. "

"A reign, fortune, will, do not wake me if I sleep, and if true, I do not sleep"

"And yet, and yet, in these our ghostly lives, half night, half day, half sleeping, half awake, how if our waking life, like that of sleep, be all a dream that eternal life in to which we not wake till we sleep in death ."

"Ay, ev?n with all your airy theatre, may flit into the air you seem to rend with acclamation, leaving me to wake in the dark tower; or dreaming that i wake from this that waking is; or this and that waking or both dreaming; such a doubt confounds and clouds our mortal life about. And, whether wake or dreaming, this i know, how dream-wise human glories come and go; whose momentary tenure not to break,walking as one who knows he soon may wake,so fairly carry the full cup, so well disorder?d insolence and passion quell, that there be nothing after to upbraid dreamer or doer in the part he play?d,whether to-morrow?s dawn shall break the spell, or the last trumpet of the eternal day, when dreaming with the night shall pass away."

"A good action is never lost; it is a treasure laid up and guarded for the doer's need."

"As a woman I loved was true, I think, 1150 when all was over, and this just does not end."

"Because life is so short, we dream, soul, we dream."

"But whether it be dream or truth, to do well is what matters. If it be truth, for truth's sake. If not, then to gain friends for the time when we awaken."

"Dreams are rough copies of the waking soul yet uncorrected of the higher will, so that men in their sometimes dreams confess an unsuspected, or forgotten, self; -since dreaming, madness, passion, are akin in missing each salutary that rein of reason , and the grinding will of man."

"For all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams."

"For I see now that I am asleep - that I dream when I am awake."

"For even in dreams a good deed is not lost."

"For the greatest crime of man is to be born."

"I dream that I am here in these prisons loaded, and dreamed that in another state saw more flattering me. What is life? A frenzy. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a fiction, and the greatest good is small: that all life is a dream, and dreams are dreams."

"Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises."

"In such battles are loyal those who overcome, the defeated traitors."

"May one know how to gain victory, and know not how to use it."

"Rushing, heavens, I intend, as I you try so, what crime I committed . Against you born even if I was born, I see what crime I have committed; enough cause has your righteousness and rigor, because the felony of man is to be born. Would just like to know to hasten my care -leaving one hand, heaven, the crime of being born- what more could offend, to punish more? Did not born others? For if others were born, what privileges had not I ever enjoyed? Born the bird, and with the trappings that give great beauty, is just flower feather corsage or winged, ethereal rooms when cut with speed, refusing to pity the nest leaving calm, what about taking it more soul, I have less freedom? Nace gross, and skin that draw beautiful spots, just sign is star -thanks to the learned brush-, when, daring and cruel human need taught to be cruel, monster of the labyrinth, what about me, better instincts, I have less freedom? Born fish, not breathing, abortion of eggs and lamas, and only ship of scales on the waves look, when everywhere rotates, measuring the immensity of such capacity as given the cold center, what about me, more will, I have less freedom? Born on stream, snake between flowers breaks out, and just snake silver among the flowers is broken, when musician celebrates flowers pity that give the majesty of the open to their escape field, and I having more life, I have less freedom? On reaching this passion, a volcano a etna made, would get breast heart pieces. Which law, justice or reason to deny men knows privileges as smooth as principal exception, that god has given a crystal, a fish, a gross and a bird?"

"Let us go to the eternal ."

"Out of the ashes of my self-extinction. A better self revive."

"These flowers, which were splendid and sprightly, waking in the dawn of the morning, in the evening will be a pitiful frivolity, sleeping in the cold night's arms."

"What is life? A frenzy. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a fiction; and the greatest good is small; that all life is a dream, and dreams are dreams."

"The treason past, the traitor is no longer needed."

"Since man's greatest crime on earth is the fatal fact of birth."

"What shall I do? But why study what I will do, if it is clear that, even if it prevents, to study it and think about it, in reaching the chance is to do my pleasure pain because no empire in their sentences have?"

"What law, what reason can deny that gift so sweet, so natural that God has given a stream, a fish, a beast, a bird?"

"What surprises you, if a dream taught me this wisdom, and if I still fear I may wake up and find myself once more confined in prison? And even if this should not happen, merely to dream it is enough. For this I have come to know, that all human happiness finally ceases, like a dream."

"When love is not madness, it is not love."