Born on the 6th of July 1907, Frida Kahlo was an artist of Mexican nationality who was popular for her portraits, most of which were of herself, and others inspired by her country’s artifacts and nature. Frida began her painting career at the age of 18 while she was recovering from a terrible bus accident. Her paintings are a perfect expression of the difficulties she endured and she does a good job of bringing them to life through a blend of vibrant colors and motifs of Mexican pop culture. Some of the Frida Kahlo quotes below are also proof of the pain and struggles she went through while she lived.
Among the bitter lemons that life threw at Frida Kahlo were being born into a loveless family, contracting polio at the age of 6, which made one of her legs shorter and thinner than the other, and being bullied by her peers. Also, the bus accident she was involved in as a young adult left her with fractured ribs, legs, collarbone, pelvic bone, three displaced vertebrae, a dislocated shoulder, and above all, shattered her dreams of becoming a doctor in addition to subjecting her to endless pain and sickness all through the remaining days of her life.
Frida’s marriage to Diego Rivera, one of the most popular and successful artists in Mexico, was also far from wonderful as she had to put up with his cheating habit but eventually gave up after Diego had an affair with her younger sister. The painter also suffered miscarriage which led to serious loss of blood and consequently made her spend weeks in the hospital. No long after Frida’s marriage to Diego ended, she was hit by gangrene and this led to the amputation of her right leg. Having fallen deep into depression, the talented painter turned to alcohol for solace but was still able to cope with her condition by expressing her raw feelings via her artworks.
Despite the many calamities that befell her, Frida was able to transform her pain into amazing paintings, thus, becoming a celebrated artist world over. Here are some inspiring Frida Kahlo quotes that will encourage you to turn the lemons life throws at you into a glass of lemonade.
50 Unforgettable Frida Kahlo Quotes That Are Truly Inspiring
1. Only one mountain can know the core of another mountain.
2. You deserve the best, the very best because you are one of the few people in this lousy world who are honest to themselves, and that is the only thing that really counts.
3. Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.
4. You deserve a lover who wants to dance with you, who goes to paradise every time he looks into your eyes and never gets tired of studying your expressions.
5. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.
6. You deserve a lover who listens when you sing, who supports you when you feel shame and respects your freedom; who flies with you and isn’t afraid to fall.
7. Painting completed my life. I lost three children and a series of other things that would have fulfilled my horrible life. My painting took the place of all of this. I think work is the best.
8. Remember that every tick tock is a second of life that goes by and doesn’t repeat itself. There is in it so much intensity, so much interest, that there is only the problem of how to live it. To each one to resolve their own best as they can.
9. To paint is the most terrific thing that there is, but to do it well is very difficult.
10. I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good feeling.
11. Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?
12. You are all the combinations of numbers of life.
13. I paint flowers so they will not die.
14. Take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are a bourbon biscuit.
15. It is terrifying to see the rich having parties day and night while thousands and thousands of people are dying of hunger…
16. You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry.
17. I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you.
18. They say never trust a limping dog or the tears of a woman.
19. I am in agreement with everything my father taught me and nothing my mother taught me.
20. I hope the exit is joyful and i hope never to return.
21. I think that little by little I’ll be able to solve my problems and survive.
22. Don’t build a wall around your suffering. It may devour you from the inside.
23. I must fight with all my strength so that the little positive things that my health allows me to do might be pointed toward helping the revolution. The only real reason for living.
24. I am that clumsy human, always loving, loving, loving. And loving. And never leaving.
25. You deserve a lover who wants you disheveled, with everything and all the reasons that wake you up in a haste and the demons that won’t let you sleep.
26. I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best
27. I was born a painter.
28. I put on the canvas whatever comes into my mind.
29. My painting carries with it the message of pain.
30. I want to be inside your darkest everything
31. The most important thing for everyone in Gringolandia is to have ambition and become ‘somebody,’ and frankly, I don’t have the least ambition to become anybody.
32. I am my own muse, I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better.
33. Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing
34. Can verbs be made up? I’ll tell you one. I heaven you, so my wings will open wide to love you boundlessly. I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.
35. What I wanted to express very clearly and intensely was that the reason these people had to invent or imagine heroes and gods is pure fear. Fear of life and fear of death.
36. pain, pleasure and death are no more than a process for existence. The revolutionary struggle in this process is a doorway open to intelligence
37. Passion is the bridge that takes you from pain to change.
38. I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.
39. I was a child who went about in a world of colors… My friends, my companions, became women slowly; I became old in instants.
40. There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the train the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.
41. At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.
42. Really, I do not know whether my paintings are surrealist or not, but I do know that they are the frankest expression of myself.
43. The most important part of the body is the brain. Of my face, I like the eyebrows and eyes.
44. You deserve a lover who makes you feel safe, who can consume this world whole if he walks hand in hand with you; someone who believes that his embraces are a perfect match with your skin.
45. I don’t paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.
46. I don’t give a shit what the world thinks. I was born a bitch, I was born a painter, I was born fucked. But I was happy in my way. You did not understand what I am. I am love. I am pleasure, I am essence, I am an idiot, I am an alcoholic, I am tenacious. I am; simply I am … You are a shit.
47. I used to think I was the strangest person in the world, but then I thought there are so many people in the world. There must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flaws in the same ways I do.
48. Since my subjects have always been my sensations, my states of mind and the profound reactions that life has been producing in me, I have frequently objectified all this in figures of myself, which were the most sincere and real thing that I could do in order to express what I felt inside and outside of myself.
49. I love you more than my own skin.
50. I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.