José Martí Quotes

There are men who live contented though they live without decorum. Others suffer as if in agony when they see around them people living without decorum. There must be a certain amount of decorum in the world, just as there must be a certain amount of light. When there are many men without decorum, there are always others who themselves possess the decorum of many men. These are the ones who rebel with terrible strength against those who rob nations of their liberty, which is to rob men of their decorum. Embodied in those men are thousands of men, a whole people, human dignity.

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.

It is necessary to make virtue fashionable.

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.

Cuba and Belgium are both countries of modest size, surrounded by large, powerful and often hostile powers.

Yo quiero salir del mundo
por la puerta natural:
en un carro de hojas verdes
a morir me han de llevar.
No me pongan en lo oscuro a morir como un traidor:
yo soy bueno, y como bueno
moriré de cara al sol.

I wish to leave the world
By its natural door;
In my tomb of green leaves
They are to carry me to die.
Do not put me in the dark
To die like a traitor;
I am good, and like a good thing
I will die with my face to the sun.

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

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

In truth, men speak too much of danger. Let others be terrified by the natural and healthy risks of life! We shall not be frightened! Poison sumac grows in a hard-working man's field, the serpent hisses from its hidden den, and the owl's eye shines in the belfry, but the sun goes on lighting the sky, and truth continues marching across the earth unscathed.

Yo he visto en la noche oscura llover sobre mi cabeza los rayos de lumbra pura de la divina belleza.

Porque usted sabe, general, que mover un país, por pequeño que sea, es obra de gigantes. Y quien no se sienta gigante de amor, o de valor, o de pensamiento, o de paciencia, no debe emprenderla

Mientras mas honda la herida,
Es mi canto mas hermoso.

While more deeper is the wound
The more beautiful the art.

Yo sé que el necio se entierra
Con gran lujo y con gran llanto, -
Y que no hay fruta en la tierra
Como la del camposanto.

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.

Indeed, people never truly forgive those they've once been forced to admire.