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Man is not an image engraved on a silver dollar, with covetous eyes, licking lips and a diamond pin on a silver dickey. Man is a living duty, a depository of powers that he must not leave in a brute state. Man is a wing.

— José Martí Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)

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More quotes by José Martí

Mankind is composed of two sorts of men — those who love and create, and those who hate and destroy.

Letter to a Cuban Farmer (1893)

A nation is not a complex of wheels, nor a wild horse race, but a stride upward concerted by real men.

A Glance at the North American's Soul Today (1886)

In night's darkness I've seen
raining down on my head
pure flames, flashing rays
of beauty divine.

Simple Verses (1891)

Once I reveled in a destiny
like no other joy I'd known:
when the warden — reading
my death sentence — wept.

Simple Verses (1891)

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

Simple Verses (1891)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: José Martí (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.