Jose Marti famous quotes

Other famous men, those of much talk and few deeds, soon evaporate. Action is the dignity of greatness.
-- Jose Marti

#Greatness #Men #Deeds

To change masters is not to be free.
-- Jose Marti

#Politics #Masters

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

#People #Evil #Political

Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy.
-- Jose Marti

#Fake People #Men #Thinking

He who could have been a torch and stoops to being a pair of jaws is a deserter.
-- Jose Marti

#Torches #Pairs

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

#Kings #Men #Light

Men are like the stars; some generate their own light while others reflect the brilliance they receive.
-- Jose Marti

#Stars #Men #Light

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

#Inspirational #Life #Beautiful

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

#Life Lesson #Doors #Giving

To Educate is to Free.
-- Jose Marti

#Educate

The only way to be totally free is through education.
-- Jose Marti

#Educational #Way

The first duty of a man is to think for himself
-- Jose Marti

#Life #Hope #Philosophy

Oh, what company good poets are!
-- Jose Marti

#Poet #Company

People can only be free if they are truly educated.
-- Jose Marti

#People #Educated

A selfish man is a thief.
-- Jose Marti

#Selfish #Men #Thieves

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

#Men #Liberty #Doe

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

#Insomnia #Ideas #Rolling

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

#Love #Encouragement #Sweet

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

#Country #Shining #Humanity

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

#Fall #Land #America

Men of action, above all those whose actions are guided by love, live forever.
-- Jose Marti

#Love #Life #Men

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

#Simple #Dignity #Talent

Love is the bond between men, the way to teach and the center of the world.
-- Jose Marti

#Love Is #Men #Ties

Peoples are made of hate and of love, and more of hate than love.
-- Jose Marti

#Hate #Made

Man needs to suffer. When he does not have real griefs he creates them.
-- Jose Marti

#Real #Grief #Men

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

#Journey #Men #Keys

Mountains culminate in peaks, and nations in men.
-- Jose Marti

#Men #Mountain

Men have no special right because they belong to one race or another: the word man defines all rights.
-- Jose Marti

#Men #Rights #Race

A knowledge of different literatures is the best way to free one's self from the tyranny of any of them.
-- Jose Marti

#Self #Justice #Different

The dagger plunged in the name of freedom is plunged into the breast of freedom.
-- Jose Marti

#Freedom #Names #Liberty

Habit creates the appearance of justice; progress has no greater enemy than habit.
-- Jose Marti

#Justice #Enemy #Progress

Hatred, slavery's inevitable aftermath.
-- Jose Marti

#Hatred #Aftermath #Slavery

It is terrible to speak of you, Liberty, for one who lives without you.
-- Jose Marti

#Liberty #Speak #Without You

Only those who spread treachery, fire, and death out of hatred for the prosperity of others are undeserving of pity.
-- Jose Marti

#Fire #Hatred #Prosperity

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

#Confused #Reading #Order

There is happiness in duty, although it may not seem so.
-- Jose Marti

#Happy #May #Duty

Literature is the most beautiful of countries
-- Jose Marti

#Beautiful #Country #Literature

No fruit on earth can rival the cemetery's crop
-- Jose Marti

#Earth #Rivals #Fruit

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

#Uprising #Leader #Soldier

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

#Poetry #Merit #Praise

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

#Country #Order #Balance

In truth, men speak too much of danger.
-- Jose Marti

#Men #Too Much #Speak

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

#Country #Animal #Men

An insatiable appetite for glory leads to sacrifice and death, but innate instinct leads to self-preservation and life.
-- Jose Marti

#Sacrifice #Self #Glory

Strength comes from waiting.
-- Jose Marti

#Patience #Waiting

A poem is something sacred. Let no one Take it for anything except itself.
-- Jose Marti

#Sacred

Nature has placed the need to see justice done in some souls, and the need to flout and affront it in others.
-- Jose Marti

#Justice #Soul #Needs

Our wine is bitter, but it is our wine.
-- Jose Marti

#Wine #Identity #Bitter

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

#Justice #Bravery #Victory

America is a land of creators and rebels.
-- Jose Marti

#Land #America #Rebel

Only oppression should fear the full exercise of freedom.
-- Jose Marti

#Exercise #Oppression #Should

Rights are to be taken, not requested; seized, not begged for.
-- Jose Marti

#Taken #Rights

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

#Doors #Law #Lazy

Others go to bed with their mistresses; I with my ideas.
-- Jose Marti

#Ideas #Mistress #Bed

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

#True Friend #Heart #Blow

A grain of poetry suffices to season a century.
-- Jose Marti

#Century #Grain

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

#Children #Men #Thinking

Man is a living duty, a depository of powers that he must not leave in a brute state. Man is a wing.
-- Jose Marti

#Men #Wings #States

To use for our exclusive benefit what is not ours is theft.
-- Jose Marti

#Use #Benefits #Theft

Charm is a product of the unexpected.
-- Jose Marti

#Unexpected #Charm

Perhaps the enemies of liberty are such only because they judge it by its loud voice.
-- Jose Marti

#Voice #Judging #Enemy

The struggles waged by nations are weak only when they lack support in the hearts of their women.
-- Jose Marti

#Struggle #Heart #Support

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

#Greed #Soul #Sun

We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it.
-- Jose Marti

#Light #May #Bread

It is a sin not to do what one is capable of doing.
-- Jose Marti

#Sin #Capable

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

#Trust #Honor #Voters

He who uses the office he owes to the voters wrongfully and against them is a thief.
-- Jose Marti

#Office #Thieves #Use

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

#Inspirational #Motivational #Exercise

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

#Trust #Money #Wish

A genuine man goes to the roots. To be a radical is no more than that: to go to the roots.
-- Jose Marti

#Men #Roots #Genuine

One just principle from the depths of a cave is more powerful than an army.
-- Jose Marti

#Powerful #Army #Principles

Amor cuerdo, no es amor. (Sane love, is not love)
-- Jose Marti

#Love Is #Amor #Sane

Day and night I always dream with open eyes." - José Martí
-- Jose Marti

#Dream #Eye #Night

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

#Men #Light #Honor

Books console us, calm us, prepare us, enrich us and redeem us.
-- Jose Marti

#Book #Calm

Man has to suffer. When he has no real afflictions, he invents some.
-- Jose Marti

#Spiritual #Real #Men

The truthe wakes up once and never dies.
-- Jose Marti

#Wake Up

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

#Winning #Liberty #Mud

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

#Ideas #Giving #Risk

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

#Beautiful #Men #Greek

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

#Essence #Wings #Air

It is necessary to make virtue fashionable.
-- Jose Marti

#Virtue #Fashionable

He who does not see things in their depth should not call himself a radical.
-- Jose Marti

#Depth #Doe #Should

Freedoms, like privileges, prevail or are imperiled together You cannot harm or strive to achieve one without harming or furthering all.
-- Jose Marti

#Together #Privilege #Strive

The force of passion is balanced by the force of interest.
-- Jose Marti

#Passion #Force #Interest

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

#Children #Honesty #Thinking

Fortunately, there is a sane equilibrium in the character of nations, as there is in that of men.
-- Jose Marti

#Character #Men #Equilibrium