José Martí quotes - page 3

Barricades of ideas are worth more than barricades of stones. There is no prow that can cut through a cloudbank of ideas. A powerful idea, waved before the world at the proper time, can stop a squadron of iron-clad ships, like the mystical flag of the Last judgement. (José Martí)
Books console us, calm us, prepare us, enrich us and redeem us. View quote
José Martí
Men are like the stars; some generate their own light while others reflect the brilliance they receive. View quote
José Martí
The first duty of a man is to think for himself. View quote
José Martí
To Educate is to Free. View quote
José Martí
It is the duty of man to raise up man. One is guilty of all abjection that one does not help to relieve. Only those who spread treachery, fire, and death out of hatred for the prosperity of others are undeserving of pity. View quote
José Martí
Men of action, above all those whose actions are guided by love, live forever. Other famous men, those of much talk and few deeds, soon evaporate. Action is the dignity of greatness. View quote
José Martí
Mankind is composed of two sorts of men - those who love and create, and those who hate and destroy. View quote
José Martí
A genuine man goes to the roots. To be a radical is no more than that: to go to the roots. He who does not see things in their depth should not call himself a radical. View quote
José Martí
Day and night I always dream with open eyes. View quote
José Martí
I grow a white rose In July just as in January For the sincere friend Who gives me his frank hand. And for the cruel man who pulls out of me the heart with which I live, I grow neither nettles nor thorns: I grow a white rose. (José Martí)
Life on earth is a hand-to-hand mortal combat... between the law of love and the law of hate. View quote
José Martí
Once I reveled in a destiny like no other joy I'd known: when the warden - reading my death sentence - wept. View quote
José Martí
It was imperative to make common cause with the oppressed, in order to secure a new system opposed to the ambitions and governing habits of the oppressors. View quote
José Martí
In Cuba, there is no fear of a racial war. Men are more than whites, mulattos or Negroes. Cubans are more than whites, mulattos or Negroes. On the field of battle, dying for Cuba, the souls of whites and Negroes have risen together into the air. View quote
José Martí
To govern well, one must see things as they are. View quote
José Martí
Knowing is what counts. To know one's country and govern it with that knowledge is the only way to free it from tyranny. View quote
José Martí
In nations composed of both cultured and uncultured elements, the uncultured will govern because it is their habit to attack and resolve doubts with their fists in cases where the cultured have failed in the art of governing. The uncultured masses are lazy and timid in the realm of intelligence, and they want to be governed well. But if the government hurts them, they shake it off and govern themselves. View quote
José Martí
Through a marvelous law of natural compensation, he who gives of himself grows, and he who turns inward and lives from small pleasures, is afraid to share them with others, and only thinks avariciously of cultivating his appetites loses his humanity and becomes loneliness itself. He carries in his breast all the dreariness of winter. He becomes in fact and appearance an insect. View quote
José Martí
Liberty the essence of life. Whatever is done without it is imperfect. View quote
José Martí
The vote is the most effective and merciful instrument that man has devised to manage his affairs. (José Martí)
The struggles waged by nations are weak only when they lack support in the hearts of their women. 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. View quote
José Martí
To insist on racial divisions, on racial differences, in an already divided people, is to place obstacles in the way of public and individual happiness, which can only be obtained by bringing people together as a nation. View quote
José Martí
The trees must form ranks to keep the giant with seven-league boots from passing! It is the time of mobilization, of marching together, and we must go forward in close ranks, like silver in the veins of the Andes. View quote
José Martí
Peoples are made of hate and of love, and more of hate than love. But love, like the sun that it is, sets afire and melts everything. View quote
José Martí