84 quotes
To beautify life is to give it an object.
On Oscar Wilde (1882)
It is not the form of things that must be attended to but their spirit. The real is what matters, not the apparent. In politics, reality is that which is unseen.
The Monetary Conference of the American Republics (1891)
My poems are like a dagger
Sprouting flowers from the hilt;
My poetry is like a fountain
Sprinkling streams of coral water.
Simple Verses (1891)
To govern well, one must see things as they are.
Our America (1891)
The soul, equal and eternal, emanates from bodies of different shapes and colors. Whoever foments and spreads antagonism and hate between the races, sins against humanity.
Our America (1891)
Terrible times in which priests no longer merit the praise of poets and in which poets have not yet begun to be priests.
On El Poema de Niágara of Pérez Bonalde (1883)
I know that when the world
surrenders, pallid, to repose,
the murmur of a tranquil stream
through the deep silence flows.
Simple Verses (1891)
I am an honest man
From where the palm tree grows,
And I want, before I die,
to cast these verses from my soul.
Simple Verses (1891)
Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy.
Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)
Knowing is what counts. To know one's country and govern it with that knowledge is the only way to free it from tyranny.
Our America (1891)
Love is... born with the pleasure of looking at each other, it is fed with the necessity of seeing each other, it is concluded with the impossibility of separation!
Amor (1887)
My poems please the brave:
My poems, short and sincere,
Have the force of steel
Which forges swords.
Simple Verses (1891)
Rights are to be taken, not requested; seized, not begged for.
Inside the Monster : Writings on the United States and American Imperialism (1975)
Others go to bed with their mistresses; I with my ideas.
Letter (1890)
Only those who hate the Negro see hatred in the Negro.
Manifesto of Montecristi (1895)
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.
Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)
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.
Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)
Man needs to suffer. When he does not have real griefs he creates them. Griefs purify and prepare him.
This is the age in which hills can look down upon the mountains.
The whole afternoon was spent rejoicing as the demonstration spread across the city; no one walked alone for all San Juan was a single family.
The Abolition of Slavery in Puerto Rico (1893)