“One must have faith in the best in men and distrust the worst. One must allow the best to be shown so that it reveals and prevails over the worst.”

— José Martí

Our America (1881)
Context: One must have faith in the best in men and distrust the worst. One must allow the best to be shown so that it reveals and prevails over the worst. Nations should have a pillory for whoever stirs up useless hate, and another for whoever fails to tell them the truth in time.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "One must have faith in the best in men and distrust the worst. One must allow the best to be shown so that it reveals a…" by José Martí?

José Martí photo

José Martí103

Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader 1853–1895

Related quotes

“One must have faith in the best in men and distrust the worst. One must allow the best to be shown so that it reveals and prevails over the worst. Nations should have a pillory for whoever stirs up useless hate, and another for whoever fails to tell them the truth in time.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Our America (1891)

“The worst men often give the best advice.”

Philip James Bailey Festus

Festus (1839)

“The best men are not consistent in good—why should the worst men be consistent in evil?”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: The Woman in White

“I must be fit for a child's glad greeting,
His are eyes that there is no cheating;
He must behold me in every test,
Not at my worst, but my very best;
He must be proud when my life is done
To have men know that he is my son.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: All That Matters (1922), p.30 - The Boy's Ideal, final stanza.

“The secret of alchemy is making the best out of the worst, and not allowing your internal state to be governed by external forces.”

“We've seen the worst that men can do, pa, and been the worst that men can be. But that don't mean that someday we won't see the best, too. And if we can never be perfect after this, well, we can still be pretty good, can't we?”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Red Prophet (1988), Chapter 14.

“To secure approval one must remain within the bounds of conventional mediocrity. Whatever lies beyond, whether it be greater insight and virtue, or greater stolidity and vice, is condemned. The noblest men, like the worst criminals, have been done to death.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 196

“The best of our fiction is by novelists who allow that it is as good as they can give, and the worst by novelists who maintain that they could do much better if only the public would let them.”

J. M. Barrie (1860–1937) Scottish writer

The Contemporary Review (1891)

“Strange though this may sound, not knowing where one is going – being lost, being a loser – reveals the greatest possible faith and optimism, as against collective security and collective significance. To believe, one must have lost God; to paint, one must have lost art.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

undated quotes, The Daily Practice of Painting, Writings (1962-1993)

“The best among our writers are doing their accustomed work of mirroring what is deep in the spirit of our time; if chaos appears in those mirrors, we must have faith that in the future, as always in the past, that chaos will slowly reveal itself as a new aspect of order.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

Related topics