Jose Marti Quotations

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Talent is a gift that brings with it an obligation to serve the world, and not ourselves, for it is not of our making.

The force of passion is balanced by the force of interest.

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

Peoples are made of hate and of love, and more of hate than love.

It is the duty of man to raise up man.

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

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

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

One is guilty of all abjection that one does not help to relieve.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

To give one's life is a right only when one gives it unselfishly.

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

In truth, men speak too much of danger.

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

Mountains culminate in peaks, and nations in men.

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.

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

A grain of poetry suffices to season a century.

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

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

Charm is a product of the unexpected.

No fruit on earth can rival the cemetery's crop

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

Terrible times in which priests no longer merit the praise of poets and in which poets have not yet begun to be priests.

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.

Strength comes from waiting.

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

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

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.

America is a land of creators and rebels.

To beautify life is to give it an object.

Men are products, expressions, reflections; they live to the extent that they coincide with their epoch, or to the extent that they differ markedly from it.

Treacherous assassins, enemies of the people, and worthy of everyone's ridicule are those who, under the pretext of guiding future generations, teach them an isolated system of doctrines and whisper in their ear (instead of the sweet message of love) the barbarous gospel of hate.

We are free, but no to be evil

My poems please the brave : My poems, short and sincere , Have the force of steel Which forges swords .

Many houses were still full of light when, at the close of March 22, the people of the Círculo returned to their homes, which were gladdened with a fleeting gladness by an hour of justice for there are still many slaves, black and white, in Puerto Rico!

All is beautiful and unceasing, all is music and reason , and all, like diamond, is carbon first, then light .

I have lived in the monster and I know its insides; and my sling is the sling of David .

Poetry is the work of the bard and of the people who inspire him.

The spirit of a government must be that of the country. The form of a government must come from the makeup of the country. Government is nothing but the balance of the natural elements of a country.

I know that when the world surrenders, pallid, to repose, the murmur of a tranquil stream through the deep silence flows.

This is the age in which hills can look down upon the mountains.

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

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

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

Literature is the most beautiful of countries

My poems are like a dagger Sprouting flowers from the hilt; My poetry is like a fountain Sprinkling streams of coral water.

Oh, what company good poets are!

A selfish man is a thief.

To Educate is to Free.

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.

Our wine is bitter, but it is our wine.

Hatred, slavery's inevitable aftermath.

Books console us, calm us, prepare us, enrich us and redeem us.

It is necessary to make virtue fashionable.

The only way to be totally free is through education.

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

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.

Man needs to go outside himself in order to find repose and reveal himself.

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.

I come from all places and to all places I go: I am art among the arts and mountain among mountains. I know the strange names of flowers and herbs and of fatal deceptions and magnificent griefs. In night's darkness I've seen raining down on my head pure flames, flashing rays of beauty divine.

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.

The truthe wakes up once and never dies.

The first duty of a man is to think for himself

Only those who hate the Negro see hatred in the Negro.

Only oppression should fear the full exercise of freedom.

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.

Racist" is a confusing word, and it should be clarified. Men have no special rights simply because they belong to one race or another. When you say "men," you have already imbued them with all their rights.

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.

Everything that divides men, everything that separates or herds men together in categories, is a sin against humanity.