José Martí: Man

José Martí was Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader. Explore interesting quotes on man.
José Martí: 206   quotes 13   likes

“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.”

José Martí

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)

“I grow a white rose
In July just as in January
For the sincere friend
Who gives me his frank hand.
And for the cruel man who pulls out of me
the heart with which I live,
I grow neither nettles nor thorns:
I grow a white rose.”

José Martí

As translated in Spanish-American Poetry : A Dual-language Anthology (1996) by Seymour Resnick
Variant translation:
I cultivate a white rose
In July as in January
For the sincere friend
Who gives me his hand frankly. <p> And for the cruel person who tears out
the heart with which I live,
I cultivate neither nettles nor thorns:
I cultivate a white rose.
Simple Verses (1891), I Grow a White Rose

“It is the duty of man to raise up man. One is guilty of all abjection that one does not help to relieve. Only those who spread treachery, fire, and death out of hatred for the prosperity of others are undeserving of pity.”

José Martí

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)

“Man is a living duty, a depository of powers that he must not leave in a brute state.”

José Martí

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)
Context: 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.

“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

“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

“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.”

José Martí

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)

God , Beauty

“The vote is the most effective and merciful instrument that man has devised to manage his affairs.”

José Martí

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)

“Man needs to suffer. When he does not have real griefs he creates them. Griefs purify and prepare him.”

José Martí

"Adúltera" [Adulterous Thoughts] (1883)

Suffering

“I am an an honest man
From where the palm tree grows,
And I want, before I die,
to cast these verses from my soul.”

José Martí

Yo soy un hombre sincero
De donde crece la palma
Y antes de morirme quiero
Echar mis versos del alma.
I (Yo soy un hombre sincero) as translated by Esther Allen in José Martí : Selected Writings (2002), p. 273, ISBN 0142437042
Variant translations:
A sincere man am I
From the land where palm trees grow,
And I want before I die
My soul's verses to bestow.
"A Sincere Man Am I" http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/46409-Jose-Marti-A-Sincere-Man-Am-I---Verse-I-, as translated by Manuel A. Tellechea, in Versos Sencillos: Simple Verses (1997) ISBN 1558852042
I am a sincere man
from where the palm tree grows,
and before I die I wish
to pour forth the verses from my soul.
Simple Verses (1891)

Soul , Tree

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

José Martí

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)

Thinking

“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.”

José Martí

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)

Love

“Let the world be grafted onto our republics, but the trunk must be our own. And let the vanquished pedant hold his tongue, for there are no lands in which a man may take greater pride than in our long-suffering American republics.”

José Martí

Our America (1881)

World , Suffering

“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. We must say no once more. Man is not free to watch impassively the enslavement and dishonor of men, nor their struggles for liberty and honor.”

José Martí

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)

Men , People , Suffering , Evil

“Man needs to go outside himself in order to find repose and reveal himself.”

José Martí

"Vivir en Sí" [To Live in Oneself] (1891)