José Martí: Likeness

“Socialist ideology, like so many others, has two main dangers. One stems from confused and incomplete readings of foreign texts, and the other from the arrogance and hidden rage of those who, in order to climb up in the world, pretend to be frantic defenders of the helpless so as to have shoulders on which to stand.”

José Martí

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)

World , Reading , Rage

“A nation that neglects either of these forces perishes. They must be steered together, like a pair of carriage horses.”

José Martí

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)
Context: Fortunately, there is a sane equilibrium in the character of nations, as there is in that of men. The force of passion is balanced by the force of interest. An insatiable appetite for glory leads to sacrifice and death, but innate instinct leads to self-preservation and life. A nation that neglects either of these forces perishes. They must be steered together, like a pair of carriage horses.

Horse

“I am good, and like a good thing
I will die with my face to the sun.”

José Martí

A Morir [To Die] (1894)
Context: 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.

Sun

“My poems are like a dagger
Sprouting flowers from the hilt;”

José Martí

Source: Simple Verses (1891), V
Context: My poems are like a dagger
Sprouting flowers from the hilt;
My poetry is like a fountain
Sprinkling streams of coral water.

Flowers

“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.”

José Martí

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)
Context: 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. 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.

Thinking

“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.”

José Martí

Love , Soul , Nature , Sun

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

José Martí

I (Yo soy un hombre sincero) as translated by Esther Allen in José Martí : Selected Writings (2002), p. 273
Simple Verses (1891)

Death , Reading , Joy

“Perhaps the enemies of liberty are such only because they judge it by its loud voice. If they knew its charms, the dignity that accompanies it, how much a free man feels like a king, the perpetual inner light that is produced by decorous self-awareness and realization, perhaps there would be no greater friends of freedom than those who are its worst enemies.”

José Martí

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)

Feeling , Freedom , Light