José Martí quotes

José Martí was a Cuban writer, poet, and political activist, regarded as a national hero in Cuba's struggle for independence. His literary works and passionate speeches inspired movements for freedom throughout Latin America. He dedicated his life to advocating for Cuba’s independence from Spanish colonial rule. Here are 149 of his quotes:

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.

José Martí

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.

José Martí

It is necessary to make virtue fashionable.

José Martí

A grain of poetry suffices to season a century.

José Martí

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

José Martí

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

José Martí

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.

José Martí

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

José Martí

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

José Martí

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

José Martí

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

José Martí

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

José Martí

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

José Martí

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

José Martí

In truth, men speak too much of danger.

José Martí

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

José Martí

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.

José Martí

The motherland is an altar, not a platform.

José Martí

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

José Martí

Hatred, slavery's inevitable aftermath.

José Martí

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

José Martí

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

José Martí