“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.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Man is a living duty, a depository of powers that he must not leave in a brute state." by José Martí?
José Martí photo
José Martí 103
Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader 1853–1895

Related quotes

Samuel Butler photo
François Bernier photo

“There was no middle state. A man must be of the highest rank or live miserably.”

François Bernier (1620–1688) French physician and traveller

Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 6
Travels in the Mogul Empire (1656-1668)

David Brewster photo

“It is a more rational belief that man may become a brute than that a brute may become a man;”

David Brewster (1781–1868) British astronomer and mathematician

The facts and fancies of Mr. Darwin (1862)
Context: It is a more rational belief that man may become a brute than that a brute may become a man; and it is an easier faith that plants and animals may dwindle down into an elemental atom, than that this atom should embrace in its organization, and evolve, all the noble forms of vegetable, animal, and intellectual life.

Thomas Paine photo
Norman Mailer photo
Thomas Jefferson photo
Napoleon I of France photo
James Anthony Froude photo
Aneurin Bevan photo

“Man must first live before he can live abundantly.”

Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) Welsh politician

In Place of Fear (William Heinemann Ltd, 1952), p. 40
1950s

Edward Young photo

“The man that blushes is not quite a brute.”

Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night VII, Line 496.

Related topics