Top 90 José Martí Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The only way to be totally free is through education.”

— José Martí

2. “Literature is the most beautiful of countries.”

— José Martí

3. “Our wine is bitter, but it is our wine.”

— José Martí

4. “Men are like the stars; some generate their own light while others reflect the brilliance they receive.”

— José Martí

5. “Do something useful and you will have everything you want. Doors are shut for those who are dull and lazy; life is secure for those who obey the law of work.”

— José Martí

6. “A selfish man is a thief.”

— José Martí

7. “The first duty of a man is to think for himself.”

— José Martí

8. “Strength comes from waiting.”

— José Martí

9. “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

10. “I come from all places and to all places I go: I am art among the arts and mountain among mountains. I know the strange names of flowers and herbs and of fatal deceptions and magnificent griefs. In night’s darkness I’ve seen raining down on my head pure flames, flashing rays of beauty divine.”

— José Martí

11. “Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity.”

— José Martí

12. “To change masters is not to be free.”

— José Martí

13. “Rights are to be taken, not requested; seized, not begged for.”

— José Martí

14. “Men of action, above all those whose actions are guided by love, live forever.”

— José Martí

15. “I have lived in the monster and I know its insides; and my sling is the sling of David .”

— José Martí

16. “One revolution is still necessary: the one that will not end with the rule of its leader. It will be the revolution against revolutions, the uprising of all peaceable individuals, who will become soldiers for once so that neither they nor anyone else will ever have to be a soldier again.”

— José Martí

17. “Talent is a gift that brings with it an obligation to serve the world, and not ourselves, for it is not of our making.”

— José Martí

18. “To beautify life is to give it an object.”

— José Martí

19. “It is a sin not to do what one is capable of doing.”

— José Martí

20. “Mountains culminate in peaks, and nations in men.”

— José Martí

21. “Like bones to the human body, the axle to the wheel, the wing to the bird, and the air to the wing, so is liberty the essence of life. Whatever is done without it is imperfect.”

— José Martí

22. “Books console us, calm us, prepare us, enrich us and redeem us.”

— José Martí

23. “Only oppression should fear the full exercise of freedom.”

— José Martí

24. “The force of passion is balanced by the force of interest.”

— José Martí

25. “But when women are moved and lend help, when women, who are by nature calm and controlled, give encouragement and applause, when virtuous and knowledgeable women grace the endeavor with their sweet love, then it is invincible.”

— José Martí

26. “A genuine man goes to the roots. To be a radical is no more than that: to go to the roots.”

— José Martí

27. “My poems please the brave : My poems, short and sincere, Have the force of steel Which forges swords .”

— José Martí

28. “Everything that divides men, everything that separates or herds men together in categories, is a sin against humanity.”

— José Martí

29. “Other famous men, those of much talk and few deeds, soon evaporate. Action is the dignity of greatness.”

— José Martí

30. “There is happiness in duty, although it may not seem so.”

— José Martí

31. “One just principle from the depths of a cave is more powerful than an army.”

— José Martí

32. “People can only be free if they are truly educated.”

— José Martí

33. “To busy oneself with what is futile when one can do something useful, to attend to what is simple when one has the mettle to attempt what is difficult, is to strip talent of its dignity.”

— José Martí

34. “Love is the bond between men, the way to teach and the center of the world.”

— José Martí

35. “All is beautiful and unceasing, all is music and reason, and all, like diamond, is carbon first, then light .”

— José Martí

36. “To educate is to give man the keys to the world, which are independence and love, and to give him strength to journey on his own, light of step, a spontaneous and free being.”

— José Martí

37. “Let those who desire a secure homeland conquer it. Let those who do not conquer it live under the whip and in exile, watched over like wild animals, cast from one country to another, concealing the death of their souls with a beggar’s smile from the scorn of free men.”

— José Martí

38. “In a time of crisis, the peoples of the world must rush to get to know each other.”

— José Martí

39. “The vote is a trust more delicate than any other, for it involves not just the interests of the voter, but his life, honor and future as well.”

— José Martí

40. “If I survive, I will spend my whole life at the oven door seeing that no one is denied bread and, so as to give a lesson of charity, especially those who did not bring flour.”

— José Martí

41. “The nation that buys commands, the nation that sells serves; it is necessary to balance trade in order to ensure freedom; the country that wants to die sells only to one country, and the country that wants to survive sells to more than one.”

— José Martí

42. “Men have no special right because they belong to one race or another: the word man defines all rights.”

— José Martí

43. “My poems are like a dagger Sprouting flowers from the hilt; My poetry is like a fountain Sprinkling streams of coral water.”

— José Martí

44. “Charm is a product of the unexpected.”

— José Martí

45. “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.”

— José Martí

46. “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

47. “We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it.”

— José Martí

48. “Freedoms, like privileges, prevail or are imperiled together You cannot harm or strive to achieve one without harming or furthering all.”

— José Martí

49. “Culture, which makes talent shine, is not completely ours either, nor can we place it solely at our disposal. Rather, it belongs mainly to our country, which gave it to us, and to humanity, from which we receive it as a birthright.”

— José Martí

50. “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