Looking for some Frida Kahlo poems and quotes in English? Frida Kahlo was a famous Mexican artist – one of Mexico’s greatest in fact, however she was also a poet.
The powerful quotes by Frida Kahlo have inspired millions of people all over the world and empowered many to find their own voice.
These many poems and quotes in this article reflect the dreams, ideas, thoughts and musings of Frida Kahlo, and are collected mostly from her personal diary entries and writings.
Perhaps you’re looking for inspiration and really enjoy reading the work of Frida Kahlo.
Or maybe you’ve been to Mexico and want to post inspiring Frida Kahlo quotes or poems in the captions on your Instagram pictures, whether that’s of Cabo San Lucas, Tijuana, Tulum, Mexico City, Ciudad Juarez or other places in Mexico.
If you are looking for more quotes from other famous Mexican people, you’ll find them all here in this article featuring almost 300 Mexico quotes and captions.
You’ll also find a section in this article where the Frida Kahlo quotes are written in Spanish.
WHO WAS FRIDA KAHLO?
Frida Kahlo was born Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón on July 6, 1907 in Coyoacán, Mexico City and suffered a life of tragedy.
She contracted polio at the age of 6 and was bedridden for nine months and left with a deformity to her right leg and foot.
Then when she was a teenager she broke her spine and pelvis when a metal pole impaled her in a horrendous bus accident.
To alleviate the pain and to pass the time during the many months of recovery of being immobilised in a full body cast, she began to paint mainly self-portraits.
These self portraits are internationally recognised as icons of feminism, individualism and the fighting spirit.
In addition to the life-long pain and 35 corrective surgeries she underwent as a result of the accident, her husband Diego cheated on her with her sister, plus she was never able to carry a baby to full-term due to the bus accident (despite desperately wanting one), so she suffered a couple of miscarriages.
Frida Kahlo later had to have part of her right leg amputated as she got gangrene in her right foot.
She then died at the age of 47 from a pulmonary embolism, although some people speculate it was an overdose as she was deeply depressed due to her poor physical health condition.
Her family home – la casa azul (the blue house) in Mexico City is now the Frida Kahlo Museum.
SHORT INSPIRATIONAL FRIDA KAHLO QUOTES IN ENGLISH
Frida Kahlo was a powerful symbol of individualism and this can be reflected in the powerful quotes she wrote.
There is nothing more precious than laughter.— Frida Kahlo
Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly? — Frida Kahlo
Passion is the bridge that takes you from pain to change. — Frida Kahlo
Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. — Frida Kahlo
Everyone’s opinions about things change over time. Nothing is constant. Everything changes. And to hold onto some dogged idea forever is a little rigid and maybe naive. — Frida Kahlo
POWERFUL FRIDA KAHLO LOVE QUOTES
Diego Rivera was the love of Frida Kahlo’s life. He was a famous muralist and painter who was 20 years older than Frida. Lots of her quotes reflect the passionate and turbulent relationship the pair had during their marriage.
I wanted to tell you that my whole being opened for you. Since I fell in love with you everything is transformed and is full of beauty… love is like an aroma, like a current, like rain.
I am that clumsy human, always loving, loving, loving. And loving. And never leaving.
I love you more than my own skin.
I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you.
Love me a little. I adore you.
Take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic.
Take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are a bourbon biscuit.
I have not forgotten you – the nights are long and difficult.
There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.
I love you more than my own skin and even though you don’t love me the same way, you love me anyways, don’t you? And if you don’t, I’ll always have the hope that you do, and I’m satisfied with that. Love me a little. I adore you.
Only one mountain can know the core of another mountain.
Diego was everything; my child, my lover, my universe.
My blood is a miracle that, from my veins, crosses the air in my heart into yours.
Wordless, Infinite — You. You intensify everything. You are fire burning all that is left of my heart.
Your word travels the entirety of space and reaches my cells which are my stars then go to yours which are my light.
I want to be inside your darkest everything.
Nothing compares to your hands… my body is filled with you for days and days.
FRIDA KAHLO QUOTES ABOUT SUFFERING & PAIN
At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.
I’ll do what I can to escape from my world.
I drank to drown my sorrows, but the damned things learned how to swim.
I had something in my throat. It felt like I had swallowed the whole world.
Don’t build a wall around your own suffering – it may devour you from the inside.
Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.
I hope the exit is joyful and I hope never to return.
I think that little by little I’ll be able to solve my problems and survive.
To trap one’s self-suffering is to risk being devoured from the inside.
Everything exists, and moves, under only one law = life.
I want a storm to come and flood us into a song that no one wrote.
Pain, pleasure, and death are no more than a process for existence. The revolutionary struggle in this process is a doorway open to intelligence.
Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing.
I am a poor little deer.
Mankind owns its destiny, and its destiny is the earth. We are destroying it until we have no destiny.
Today is like always… there is a skeleton (or death) that flees terrified in the face of my will to live.
People, in general, are scared to death of the war and all the exhibitions have been a failure because the rich bitches don’t want to buy anything.
It was worthwhile to come here only to see why Europe is rotting, why all these people — good for nothing — are the cause of all the Hitlers and Mussolinis.
What would I do without the absurd and the ephemeral?
FRIDA KAHLO QUOTES ABOUT PAINTING
I don’t paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.
I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.
Painting completed my life.
The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to.
I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone because I am the person I know best.
My painting carries with it the message of pain.
I am my own muse, I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better.
I paint flowers so they will not die.
I never knew I was a surrealist till Andre Breton came to Mexico and told me I was.
Really, I do not know whether my paintings are surrealist or not, but I do know that they are the frankest expression of myself.
I have never expected anything from my work but the satisfaction I could get from it by the very fact of painting and saying what I couldn’t say otherwise.
Frida Kahlo’s Most Famous Paintings
Here are a selection of the most famous paintings by Frida Kahlo, and the meaning behind them.
The Two Fridas
A double self portrait which represents Frida’s pain and identity struggle after separating from her husband.
Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird
A reflection of Frida Kahlo’s pain following the separation from her husband.
The Wounded Deer
This self portrait symbolically shows the emotional and physical pain related to Kahlo’s injures. In the portrait, Kahlo is depicted as a deer struck with arrows about to die.
The Suicide of Dorothy Hale
Dorothy Hale was a famous American actress who committed suicide by jumping from a New York skyscraper. Her friend Clare Luce asked Frida Kahlo to create a painting in her memory. The graphic painting – which showed Dorothy falling from the building, offended Luce so much that she wanted to destroy it.
The Broken Column
This painting shows a glimpse of the life-long pain the bus accident caused her. It shows Kahlo post spinal-surgery nude on a hospital sheet wearing just a corset, with her body split open and pierced with nails.
My Grandparents, My Parents & I
This family tree shows Kahlo as a young child, surrounded by her parents – her Mexican mother and her German father, as well as her grandparents. She proudly shows her mixed heritage, at a time when Hitler outlawed interrace marriages.
Self Portrait On The Borderline Between Mexico and The United States
Kahlo lived in the US for a few years, and this painting represents Frida’s longing for the Mexican lifestyle and her dislike for the capitalist culture of the USA.
Frida Kahlo Quotes About Pain & Suffering in Spanish with English Translation
If you are looking for some Frida Kahlo quotes in Spanish – Frida’s native language, you’ll find several here.
Traté de ahogar mis penas… pero las condenadas aprendieron a nadar.
I tried to drown my sorrows … but the damned things learned how to swim.
El dolor no es parte de la vida, se puede convertir en la vida misma.
Pain is not a part of life. It can become life itself.
Hay que ser sinceras, sin dolor no podemos vivir las mujeres.
We have to be honest: women can’t live without pain.
Amurallar el propio sufrimiento es arriesgarse a que te devore desde el interior.
To keep in your own suffering is to risk being devoured from within.
Espero que la salida sea alegre y espero no volver nunca más.
I hope the departure is happy and I hope never to return.
More Frida Kahlo Quotes en Español
Si actuas como si supieras lo que estas haciendo, puedes hacer lo que quieras.
If you act as if you know what you are doing, you can do whatever you want.
Dame ilusión, esperanza, ganas de vivir y no me olvides.
Give me hope, make me dream, will to live and don’t forget me.
Creo que poco a poco voy a ser capaz de resolver mis problemas y sobrevivir.
I think that little by little I’ll be capable of solving my troubles and survive.
Vivo cada día con la esperanza de verte regresar… y cada noche sabiendo que no estás.
I live every day with hopes of seeing you coming back… and every night knowing you’re not here.
Lo único que sé es que pinto porque lo necesito.
The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to.
Me acogiste destrozada y me devolviste entera, íntegra.
You took me in broken and you returned me whole.
¿Qué haría yo sin lo absurdo y lo fugaz?
What would be of me without the absurd and fleeting?
La belleza y la fealdad son un espejismo, porque los demás terminan viendo nuestro interior.
Beauty and ugliness are a mirage, because others end up seeing our inside.
Quisiera darte todo lo que nunca hubieras tenido, y ni así sabrías la maravilla que es poder quererte.
I would like to give you everything you never would have, and even then you would not know the wonder it is to be able to love you.
Short Frida Kahlo Spanish Quotes with English Translation
Vivir de recuerdos es morir.
To live on memories is to die.
Lo que no me mata, me alimenta.
What does not kill me, feeds me.
Que todo termina en un instante.
Everything ends in an instant.
Donde no puedas amar, no te demores.
Where you can not love, don’t delay.
No quiero que pienses como yo, sólo que pienses.
I don’t want you to think like I do. I just want you to think.
Árbol de la esperanza, mantente firme.
Tree of hope, stand firm.
Te vas? No. Alas rotas.
You go? No. Broken wings.
Pies pa’ que los quiero, si tengo alas pa’ volar.
Feet, why do I want them, if I have wings to fly.
Frida Kahlo Poems To Her Husband Diego Rivera
The below poems were all written by Frida Kahlo to her husband Diego Rivera.
Diego.
Truth is, so great, that I wouldn’t like to speak,
or sleep, or listen, or love.
To feel myself trapped, with no fear of blood,
outside time and magic, within your own fear,
and your great anguish,
and within the very beating of your heart.
All this madness, if I asked it of you, I know, in your silence,
there would be only confusion.
I ask you for violence, in the nonsense, and you,
you give me grace, your light and your warmth.
I’d like to paint you, but there are no colors,
because there are so many, in my confusion,
the tangible form of my great love.
Diego:
It’s not love,
or tenderness,
or affection.
It’s life itself, my life,
that I found what I saw it in your hands,
in your mouth and in your breasts.
I have the taste of almonds from your lips in my mouth.
Our worlds have never gone outside.
Only one mountain can know the core of another mountain.
Your presence floats for a moment or two
as if wrapping my whole being in an anxious wait for the morning.
I notice that I’m with you.
At that instant still full of sensations,
my hands are sunk in oranges,
and my body feels surrounded by your arms.
My Diego.
I am no longer alone.
You accompany me.
You put me to sleep and you revive me.
Nothing compares to your hands,
nothing like the green-gold of your eyes.
My body is filled with you for days and days.
You are the mirror of the night,
the violent flash of lightning,
the dampness of the earth.
The hollow of your armpits is my shelter,
my fingers touch your blood.
All my joy is to feel life spring from your flower-fountain
that mine keeps to fill all the paths of my nerves
which are yours.
My Diego:
Mirror of the night.
Your eyes green swords
inside my flesh,
waves between our hands.
All you in a space full of sounds
in the shade and in the light.
You were called AUXO-CHROME: the one who captures color.
I CHROMOPHORE: the one who gives color.
You are all the combinations
of numbers
of life.
My wish is to understand lines, form, shades, movement.
You fulfill and I receive.
Your word travels the entirety of space and reaches my cells
which are my stars
then goes to yours
which are my light.
The Most Heartbreakingly Raw Of Frida Kahlo Poems
I’m not going to ask you to kiss me,
neither ask for forgiveness when I believe that you have done wrong,
or that you have made a mistake.
Nor am I going to ask you to hug me when I need it the most,
or to invite me to dinner on our anniversary.
I’m not going to ask you to go around the world
to live new experiences, much less
ask you to give me your hand when we are in that city.
I’m not going to ask you to tell me how pretty I am,
even if it’s a lie or that you write me anything nice.
Nor will I ask you to call me to tell me
how your day was or tell me you miss me.
I’m not going to ask you to thank me for everything I do for you,
for you to worry about me when my moods are down
and of course I will not ask you to support me in my decisions.
I’m not going to ask you to listen to me when I have a thousand
stories to tell you.
I’m not going to ask you to do anything,
not even to stay by my side forever.
Because if I have to ask you,
I do not want it anymore.
Frida Kahlo Poems & Quotes Summary
I hope you got lots of inspiration and ideas from these Frida Kahlo quotes and poems and were able to find one you really love and can relate to!
Do you know any other famous quotes or poems by Frida Kahlo? Feel free to leave them in the comments below!
If you want to learn more about the life of Frida Kahlo I recommend watching the movie ‘Frida‘ which starred Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo, and Alfred Molina as her husband Diego Rivera.
The movie was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning Original Score and Best Makeup.
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