“The merit and strength of a people are measured by their enthusiasm for freedom when the only rewards from it are anguish and martyrdom, the blood and ashes of exile, the sorrow of a house driven by the waves, and the shame of a useless life that lacks the foundation and peace of mind needed to do one's share of the common task.”
Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)
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José Martí 103
Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader 1853–1895Related quotes

Nobel acceptance speech (1986)
Context: As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.

“People do not lack strength, they lack will.”

2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Happiness

“But the people of the Baltic nations also knew that freedom needs a foundation of security.”
2014, Remarks to the People of Estonia (September 2014)