Jose Marti quotes
-
Other famous men, those of much talk and few deeds, soon evaporate. Action is the dignity of greatness.
-- Jose Marti -
To change masters is not to be free.
-- Jose Marti -
We are free, but not to be evil, not to be indifferent to human suffering, not to profit from the people, from the work created and sustained through their spirit of political association, while refusing to contribute to the political state that we profit from.
-- Jose Marti -
Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy.
-- Jose Marti -
-
He who could have been a torch and stoops to being a pair of jaws is a deserter.
-- Jose Marti -
Perhaps the enemies of liberty are such only because they judge it by its loud voice. If they knew its charms, the dignity that accompanies it, how much a free man feels like a king, the perpetual inner light that is produced by decorous self-awareness and realization, perhaps there would be no greater friends of freedom than those who are its worst enemies.
-- Jose Marti -
Men are like the stars; some generate their own light while others reflect the brilliance they receive.
-- Jose Marti -
Talent is a gift that brings with it an obligation to serve the world, and not ourselves, for it is not of our making.
-- Jose Marti -
-
If I survive, I will spend my whole life at the oven door seeing that no one is denied bread and, so as to give a lesson of charity, especially those who did not bring flour.
-- Jose Marti -
To Educate is to Free.
-- Jose Marti -
The only way to be totally free is through education.
-- Jose Marti -
The first duty of a man is to think for himself
-- Jose Marti -
-
Oh, what company good poets are!
-- Jose Marti -
People can only be free if they are truly educated.
-- Jose Marti -
A selfish man is a thief.
-- Jose Marti -
Man loves liberty, even if he does not know that he loves it. He is driven by it and flees from where it does not exist.
-- Jose Marti -
-
Like stones rolling down hills, fair ideas reach their objectives despite all obstacles and barriers. It may be possible to speed or hinder them, but impossible to stop them.
-- Jose Marti -
But when women are moved and lend help, when women, who are by nature calm and controlled, give encouragement and applause, when virtuous and knowledgeable women grace the endeavor with their sweet love, then it is invincible.
-- Jose Marti -
Culture, which makes talent shine, is not completely ours either, nor can we place it solely at our disposal. Rather, it belongs mainly to our country, which gave it to us, and to humanity, from which we receive it as a birthright.
-- Jose Marti -
It is my duty to prevent, through the independence of Cuba, the U.S.A. from spreading over the West Indies and falling with addedweight upon other lands of Our America. All I have done up to now and shall do hereafter is to that end.... I know the Monster, because I have lived in its lair--and my weapon is only the slingshot of David.
-- Jose Marti -
-
Men of action, above all those whose actions are guided by love, live forever.
-- Jose Marti -
To busy oneself with what is futile when one can do something useful, to attend to what is simple when one has the mettle to attempt what is difficult, is to strip talent of its dignity.
-- Jose Marti -
Love is the bond between men, the way to teach and the center of the world.
-- Jose Marti -
Peoples are made of hate and of love, and more of hate than love.
-- Jose Marti -
-
Man needs to suffer. When he does not have real griefs he creates them.
-- Jose Marti -
To educate is to give man the keys to the world, which are independence and love, and to give him strength to journey on his own, light of step, a spontaneous and free being.
-- Jose Marti -
Mountains culminate in peaks, and nations in men.
-- Jose Marti -
Men have no special right because they belong to one race or another: the word man defines all rights.
-- Jose Marti -
-
A knowledge of different literatures is the best way to free one's self from the tyranny of any of them.
-- Jose Marti -
The dagger plunged in the name of freedom is plunged into the breast of freedom.
-- Jose Marti -
Habit creates the appearance of justice; progress has no greater enemy than habit.
-- Jose Marti -
Hatred, slavery's inevitable aftermath.
-- Jose Marti -
-
It is terrible to speak of you, Liberty, for one who lives without you.
-- Jose Marti -
Only those who spread treachery, fire, and death out of hatred for the prosperity of others are undeserving of pity.
-- Jose Marti -
Socialist ideology, like so many others, has two main dangers. One stems from confused and incomplete readings of foreign texts, and the other from the arrogance and hidden rage of those who, in order to climb up in the world, pretend to be frantic defenders of the helpless so as to have shoulders on which to stand.
-- Jose Marti -
There is happiness in duty, although it may not seem so.
-- Jose Marti -
-
Literature is the most beautiful of countries
-- Jose Marti -
No fruit on earth can rival the cemetery's crop
-- Jose Marti -
One revolution is still necessary: the one that will not end with the rule of its leader. It will be the revolution against revolutions, the uprising of all peaceable individuals, who will become soldiers for once so that neither they nor anyone else will ever have to be a soldier again.
-- Jose Marti -
Terrible times in which priests no longer merit the praise of poets and in which poets have not yet begun to be priests.
-- Jose Marti -
-
The nation that buys commands, the nation that sells serves; it is necessary to balance trade in order to ensure freedom; the country that wants to die sells only to one country , and the country that wants to survive sells to more than one.
-- Jose Marti -
In truth, men speak too much of danger.
-- Jose Marti -
Let those who desire a secure homeland conquer it. Let those who do not conquer it live under the whip and in exile, watched over like wild animals, cast from one country to another, concealing the death of their souls with a beggar's smile from the scorn of free men.
-- Jose Marti -
An insatiable appetite for glory leads to sacrifice and death, but innate instinct leads to self-preservation and life.
-- Jose Marti -
-
Strength comes from waiting.
-- Jose Marti -
A poem is something sacred. Let no one Take it for anything except itself.
-- Jose Marti -
Nature has placed the need to see justice done in some souls, and the need to flout and affront it in others.
-- Jose Marti -
Our wine is bitter, but it is our wine.
-- Jose Marti -
-
The brave forget. It is those who fought less bravely, or those who fought without justice and live in fear of their victory, who forget the least.
-- Jose Marti -
America is a land of creators and rebels.
-- Jose Marti -
Only oppression should fear the full exercise of freedom.
-- Jose Marti -
Rights are to be taken, not requested; seized, not begged for.
-- Jose Marti -
-
Do something useful and you will have everything you want. Doors are shut for those who are dull and lazy; life is secure for those who obey the law of work.
-- Jose Marti -
Others go to bed with their mistresses; I with my ideas.
-- Jose Marti -
Cultivo una rosa blanca, En julio como en enero, Para el amigo sincero Que me da su mano franca. Y para el cruel que me arranca El corazon con que vivo, Cardo ni oruga cultivo Cultivo una rosa blanca. I have a white rose to tend In July as in January; I give it to the true friend Who offers his frank hand to me. And to the cruel one whose blows Break the heart by which I live, Thistle nor thorn do I give: For him, too, I have a white rose.
-- Jose Marti -
A grain of poetry suffices to season a century.
-- Jose Marti -
-
A child who does not think about what happens around him and is content with living without wondering whether he lives honestly is like a man who lives from a scoundrel's work and is on the road to being a scoundrel.
-- Jose Marti -
Man is a living duty, a depository of powers that he must not leave in a brute state. Man is a wing.
-- Jose Marti -
To use for our exclusive benefit what is not ours is theft.
-- Jose Marti -
Charm is a product of the unexpected.
-- Jose Marti -
-
Perhaps the enemies of liberty are such only because they judge it by its loud voice.
-- Jose Marti -
The struggles waged by nations are weak only when they lack support in the hearts of their women.
-- Jose Marti -
But love, like the sun that it is, sets afire and melts everything. what greed and privilege to build up over whole centuries the indignation of a pious spirit, with its natural following of oppressed souls, will cast down with a single shove.
-- Jose Marti -
We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it.
-- Jose Marti -
-
It is a sin not to do what one is capable of doing.
-- Jose Marti -
The vote is a trust more delicate than any other, for it involves not just the interests of the voter, but his life, honor and future as well.
-- Jose Marti -
He who uses the office he owes to the voters wrongfully and against them is a thief.
-- Jose Marti -
Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity.
-- Jose Marti -
-
He who receives money in trust to administer for the benefit of its owner, and uses it either for his own interest or against the wishes of its rightful owner, is a thief.
-- Jose Marti -
A genuine man goes to the roots. To be a radical is no more than that: to go to the roots.
-- Jose Marti -
One just principle from the depths of a cave is more powerful than an army.
-- Jose Marti -
Amor cuerdo, no es amor. (Sane love, is not love)
-- Jose Marti -
-
Day and night I always dream with open eyes." - José MartÃ
-- Jose Marti -
In this world, there must be a certain degree of honor just as there must be a certain amount of light. When there are many men without honor, there will always be some others who bear in themselves the honor of many men.
-- Jose Marti -
Books console us, calm us, prepare us, enrich us and redeem us.
-- Jose Marti -
Man has to suffer. When he has no real afflictions, he invents some.
-- Jose Marti -
-
The truthe wakes up once and never dies.
-- Jose Marti -
The wretch who lives without freedom feels like dressing in the mud from the streets Those who have you, o Liberty, do not know. you. Those who do not have you should not speak of you, but win you.
-- Jose Marti -
Just as he who gives his life to serve a great idea is admirable, he who avails himself of a great idea to serve his personal hopes of glory and power is abominable, even if he too risks his life.
-- Jose Marti -
Every human being has within him an ideal man, just as every piece of marble contains in a rough state a statue as beautiful as the one that Praxiteles the Greek made of the god Apollo.
-- Jose Marti -
-
Like bones to the human body, the axle to the wheel, the wing to the bird, and the air to the wing, so is liberty the essence of life. Whatever is done without it is imperfect.
-- Jose Marti -
It is necessary to make virtue fashionable.
-- Jose Marti -
He who does not see things in their depth should not call himself a radical.
-- Jose Marti -
Freedoms, like privileges, prevail or are imperiled together You cannot harm or strive to achieve one without harming or furthering all.
-- Jose Marti -
-
The force of passion is balanced by the force of interest.
-- Jose Marti -
A child, from the time he can think, should think about all he sees, should suffer for all who cannot live with honesty, should work so that all men can be honest, and should be honest himself.
-- Jose Marti -
Fortunately, there is a sane equilibrium in the character of nations, as there is in that of men.
-- Jose Marti
You may also like:
-
Alejo Carpentier
Novelist -
Amado Nervo
Poet -
Antonio Machado
Poet -
Celia Cruz
Singer -
Cesar Romero
Actor -
Che Guevara
Revolutionary -
Emilio Aguinaldo
Former President of the Philippines -
Fidel Castro
Former Prime Minister of Cuba -
Gabriela Mistral
Poet -
Jose Lezama Lima
Writer -
Juan Ramon Jimenez
Poet -
Nicolas Guillen
Poet -
Pablo Neruda
Senator of Chile -
Porfirio Diaz
Mexican Politician -
Raul Castro
President of the Council of State of Cuba -
Ruben Dario
Poet -
Simon Bolivar
Former President of Gran Colombia -
William Randolph Hearst
Publisher
