Antonio Porchia

Italian Argentinian poet

Antonio Porchiawas an Argentine poet.
Porchia was born in Conflenti, Italy, but, after the death of his father in 1900, moved to Argentina.

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About the Antonio Porchia

Antonio Porchiawas an Argentine poet.

Porchia was born in Conflenti, Italy, but, after the death of his father in 1900, moved to Argentina.

Porchia wrote a Spanish book entitled Voces (“Voices”), a book of aphorisms. It has since been translated into Italian and into English (by W.S. Merwin, Copper Canyon Press, 2003), French, and German.

A very influential, yet extremely succinct writer, Porchia has been a cult author for a number of renowned figures of contemporary literature and thought such as Andre Breton, Jorge Luis Borges, Don Paterson, Roberto Juarroz and Henry Miller, amongst others. Some critics have paralleled his work to Japanese haiku and found many similarities with a number of Zen schools of thought.

27 Quotes by Antonio Porchia

  1. 1.

    You do not see the river of mourning because it lacks one tear of your own.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  2. 2.

    God has given a great deal to man, but man would like something from man.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  3. 3.

    The children whom nobody leads by the hand are the children who know they are children.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  4. 4.

    I stop wanting what I am looking for, looking for it.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  5. 5.

    My poverty is not complete: it lacks me.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  6. 6.

    Infancy is what is eternal, and the rest, all the rest, is brevity, extreme brevity.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  7. 7.

    Those who gave away their wings are sad not to see them fly.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  8. 8.

    Flowers are without hope. Because hope is tomorrow and flowers have no tomorrow.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  9. 9.

    What words say does not last. The words last. Because words are always the same, and what they say is never the same.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  10. 10.

    In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  11. 11.

    I have been my own disciple and my own master. And I have been a good disciple but a bad master.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  12. 12.

    He who does not fill his world with phantoms remains alone.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  13. 13.

    The chains that bind us the most closely are the ones we have broken.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  14. 14.

    I keep my hands empty for the sake of what I have had in them.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  15. 15.

    They will say you are on the wrong road, if it is your own.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  16. 16.

    Whatever I take, I take too much or too little; I do not take the exact amount. The exact amount is no use to me.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  17. 17.

    One lives in the hope of becoming a memory.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  18. 18.

    Certainties are arrived at only on foot.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  19. 19.

    What we pay for with our lives never costs too much.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  20. 20.

    He who has seen everything empty itself is close to knowing what everything is filled with.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  21. 21.

    He who does not know how to create should not know.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  22. 22.

    That in man which cannot be domesticated is not his evil but his goodness.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  23. 23.

    He who goes step by step always finds himself level with a step.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  24. 24.

    If you are good to this one and that one, this one and that one will say that you are good. If you are good to everyone, no one will say that you are good.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  25. 25.

    Truth has very few friends and those few are suicides.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  26. 26.

    Set out from any point. They are all alike. They all lead to a point of departure.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet

  27. 27.

    If you do not raise your eyes you will think you are the highest point.

    Antonio Porchia

    Italian Argentinian poet