Men are like the stars; some generate their own light while others reflect the brilliance they receive.
— Jose Marti
A grain of poetry suffices to season a century.
The struggles waged by nations are weak only when they lack support in the hearts of their women.
Love is the bond between men, the way to teach and the center of the world.
Men of action, above all those whose actions are guided by love, live forever.
He who does not see things in their depth should not call himself a radical.
Only those who spread treachery, fire, and death out of hatred for the prosperity of others are undeserving of pity.
A child who does not think about what happens around him and is content with living without wondering whether he lives honestly is like a man who lives from a scoundrel's work and is on the road to being a scoundrel.
A selfish man is a thief.
Talent is a gift that brings with it an obligation to serve the world, and not ourselves, for it is not of our making.
Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity.
If I survive, I will spend my whole life at the oven door seeing that no one is denied bread and, so as to give a lesson of charity, especially those who did not bring flour.
Peoples are made of hate and of love, and more of hate than love.
Fortunately, there is a sane equilibrium in the character of nations, as there is in that of men.
He who receives money in trust to administer for the benefit of its owner, and uses it either for his own interest or against the wishes of its rightful owner, is a thief.
It is terrible to speak of you, Liberty, for one who lives without you.
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.
Others go to bed with their mistresses; I with my ideas.
Mountains culminate in peaks, and nations in men.
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.
There is happiness in duty, although it may not seem so.
It is a sin not to do what one is capable of doing.
A genuine man goes to the roots. To be a radical is no more than that: to go to the roots.
It is the duty of man to raise up man.
A child, from the time he can think, should think about all he sees, should suffer for all who cannot live with honesty, should work so that all men can be honest, and should be honest himself.
Culture, which makes talent shine, is not completely ours either, nor can we place it solely at our disposal. Rather, it belongs mainly to our country, which gave it to us, and to humanity, from which we receive it as a birthright.
To give one's life is a right only when one gives it unselfishly.
One just principle from the depths of a cave is more powerful than an army.
We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it.
An insatiable appetite for glory leads to sacrifice and death, but innate instinct leads to self-preservation and life.
He who uses the office he owes to the voters wrongfully and against them is a thief.
We are free, but not to be evil, not to be indifferent to human suffering, not to profit from the people, from the work created and sustained through their spirit of political association, while refusing to contribute to the political state that we profit from.
Freedoms, like privileges, prevail or are imperiled together You cannot harm or strive to achieve one without harming or furthering all.
Like bones to the human body, the axle to the wheel, the wing to the bird, and the air to the wing, so is liberty the essence of life. Whatever is done without it is imperfect.
Charm is a product of the unexpected.
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.
In truth, men speak too much of danger.
Other famous men, those of much talk and few deeds, soon evaporate. Action is the dignity of greatness.
To busy oneself with what is futile when one can do something useful, to attend to what is simple when one has the mettle to attempt what is difficult, is to strip talent of its dignity.
Man is a living duty, a depository of powers that he must not leave in a brute state. Man is a wing.
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.
He who could have been a torch and stoops to being a pair of jaws is a deserter.
To use for our exclusive benefit what is not ours is theft.
Just as he who gives his life to serve a great idea is admirable, he who avails himself of a great idea to serve his personal hopes of glory and power is abominable, even if he too risks his life.
It is necessary to make virtue fashionable.
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.
The force of passion is balanced by the force of interest.
The vote is a trust more delicate than any other, for it involves not just the interests of the voter, but his life, honor and future as well.
The wretch who lives without freedom feels like dressing in the mud from the streets Those who have you, o Liberty, do not know. you. Those who do not have you should not speak of you, but win you.
Perhaps the enemies of liberty are such only because they judge it by its loud voice.
