José Julián Martí y Pérez (1853-1895) was a revered Cuban poet, essayist and a pivotal figure in Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain.
Martí’s dedication to Cuban liberty made him a symbol for freedom throughout Latin America.
From an early age, Martí’s writings reflected his fervent patriotic spirit. At 16, he founded a newspaper and was later exiled for his revolutionary sympathies.
Despite this, Martí continued his education and writing abroad, earning degrees from the University of Zaragoza and contributing to numerous publications.
His essays, featuring a distinct and personal style, revolutionized Spanish prose and fostered unity among American nations.
His poetic collection, “Versos libres,” themed on freedom, showcased his deep sensitivity and originality.
Related: Lord Byron Quotes from the Greatest English Poet and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes from German Poet
In 1892, Martí was elected delegate of the Partido Revolucionario Cubano, a party he co-founded.
He orchestrated plans for a Cuban invasion from New York and died in battle in Cuba in 1895, achieving his lifelong goal of Cuban independence posthumously.
Below you will find the collection of top Jose Marti quotes.
Best Jose Marti Quotes
Strength comes from waiting. ~ Jose Marti.
Literature is the most beautiful of countries. ~ Jose Marti.
It is necessary to make virtue fashionable. ~ Jose Marti.
Mountains culminate in peaks, and nations in men. ~ Jose Marti.
To change masters is not to be free. ~ Jose Marti.
No fruit on earth can rival the cemetery’s crop. ~ Jose Marti.
Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy. ~ Jose Marti.
Rights are to be taken, not requested; seized, not begged for. ~ Jose Marti.
I know that when the world surrenders, pallid, to repose, the murmur of a tranquil stream through the deep silence flows. ~ Jose Marti.
To beautify life is to give it an object. ~ Jose Marti.
We are free, but no to be evil. ~ Jose Marti.
A good soul on earth hurts very much. ~ José Martí.
Man needs to go outside himself in order to find repose and reveal himself. ~ Jose Marti.
An insatiable appetite for glory leads to sacrifice and death, but innate instinct leads to self-preservation and life. ~ Jose Marti.
Famous Jose Marti Quotes
Books console us, calm us, prepare us, enrich us and redeem us. ~ Jose Marti.
He who could have been a torch and stoops to being a pair of jaws is a deserter. ~ Jose Marti.
Hatred, slavery’s inevitable aftermath. ~ Jose Marti.
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. ~ Jose Marti.
Charm is a product of the unexpected. ~ Jose Marti.
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. ~ Jose Marti.
We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it. ~ Jose Marti.
Top Jose Marti Quotes
It is terrible to speak of you, Liberty, for one who lives without you. ~ Jose Marti.
People can only be free if they are truly educated. ~ Jose Marti.
A knowledge of different literatures is the best way to free one’s self from the tyranny of any of them. ~ Jose Marti.
The force of passion is balanced by the force of interest. ~ Jose Marti.
He who receives money in trust to administer for the benefit of its owner, and uses it either for his own interest or against the wishes of its rightful owner, is a thief. ~ Jose Marti.
Day and night I always dream with open eyes. ~ Jose Marti.
My poems please the brave : My poems, short and sincere, Have the force of steel Which forges swords . ~ Jose Marti.
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. ~ Jose Marti.
The only way to be totally free is through education. ~ Jose Marti.
In a time of crisis, the peoples of the world must rush to get to know each other. ~ Jose Marti.
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. ~ Jose Marti.
Popular Jose Marti Quotes
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. ~ Jose Marti.
The dagger plunged in the name of freedom is plunged into the breast of freedom. ~ Jose Marti.
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. ~ Jose Marti.
Men have no special right because they belong to one race or another: the word man defines all rights. ~ Jose Marti.
All is beautiful and unceasing, all is music and reason, and all, like diamond, is carbon first, then light . ~ Jose Marti.
Others go to bed with their mistresses; I with my ideas. ~ Jose Marti.
There is happiness in duty, although it may not seem so. ~ Jose Marti.
The first duty of a man is to think for himself. ~ Jose Marti.
Our wine is bitter, but it is our wine. ~ Jose Marti.
Man is a living duty, a depository of powers that he must not leave in a brute state. Man is a wing. ~ Jose Marti.
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. ~ Jose Marti.
Terrible times in which priests no longer merit the praise of poets and in which poets have not yet begun to be priests. ~ Jose Marti.
Great Jose Marti Quotes
I have lived in the monster and I know its insides; and my sling is the sling of David . ~ Jose Marti.
He who does not see things in their depth should not call himself a radical. ~ Jose Marti.
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. ~ Jose Marti.
A grain of poetry suffices to season a century. ~ Jose Marti.
Men are products, expressions, reflections; they live to the extent that they coincide with their epoch, or to the extent that they differ markedly from it. ~ Jose Marti.
A genuine man goes to the roots. To be a radical is no more than that: to go to the roots. ~ Jose Marti.
My poems are like a dagger Sprouting flowers from the hilt; My poetry is like a fountain Sprinkling streams of coral water. ~ Jose Marti.
Talent is a gift that brings with it an obligation to serve the world, and not ourselves, for it is not of our making. ~ Jose Marti.
Freedoms, like privileges, prevail or are imperiled together You cannot harm or strive to achieve one without harming or furthering all. ~ Jose Marti.
Habit creates the appearance of justice; progress has no greater enemy than habit. ~ Jose Marti.
America is a land of creators and rebels. ~ Jose Marti.
Powerful Jose Marti Quotes
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. ~ Jose Marti.
A poem is something sacred. Let no one Take it for anything except itself. ~ Jose Marti.
It is the duty of man to raise up man. ~ Jose Marti.
One just principle from the depths of a cave is more powerful than an army. ~ Jose Marti.
In truth, men speak too much of danger. ~ Jose Marti.
Nature has placed the need to see justice done in some souls, and the need to flout and affront it in others. ~ Jose Marti.
The truthe wakes up once and never dies. ~ Jose Marti.
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. ~ Jose Marti.
He who uses the office he owes to the voters wrongfully and against them is a thief. ~ Jose Marti.
This is the age in which hills can look down upon the mountains. ~ Jose Marti.
Everything that divides men, everything that separates or herds men together in categories, is a sin against humanity. ~ Jose Marti.
Like stones rolling down hills, fair ideas reach their objectives despite all obstacles and barriers. It may be possible to speed or hinder them, but impossible to stop them. ~ Jose Marti.
Love is the bond between men, the way to teach and the center of the world. ~ Jose Marti.
Wise Jose Marti Quotes
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. ~ Jose Marti.
Only tyranny fears the full expression of liberty. ~ José Martí.
Men are like the stars; some generate their own light while others reflect the brilliance they receive. ~ Jose Marti.
Man has to suffer. When he has no real afflictions, he invents some. ~ Jose Marti.
The brave forget. It is those who fought less bravely, or those who fought without justice and live in fear of their victory, who forget the least. ~ Jose Marti.
Perhaps the enemies of liberty are such only because they judge it by its loud voice. ~ Jose Marti.
God is weeping. And how the people weep when they make God weep! ~ José Martí.
Men of action, above all those whose actions are guided by love, live forever. ~ Jose Marti.
Fortunately, there is a sane equilibrium in the character of nations, as there is in that of men. ~ Jose Marti.
The struggles waged by nations are weak only when they lack support in the hearts of their women. ~ Jose Marti.
It is a sin not to do what one is capable of doing. ~ Jose Marti.
José Martí Quotes in Spanish
Yo vengo de todas partes, Y hacia todas partes voy. ~ José Martí.
Mi verso es como un puñal que por el puño, echa flor. ~ José Martí.
Que las limitaciones del amor no arrojen un hechizo sobre las serias ambiciones de tu mente. ~ José Martí.
Los niños de las Américas debieran aprender a conocer, respetar y amar a la madre indígena de este continente. ~ José Martí.
Seule l’oppression devrait craindre l’expression complète de la liberté. ~ José Martí.
Vivi dentro del monstro y conozco sus entranas. ~ José Martí.
La libertad cuesta muy cara, y es necesario o resignarse a vivir sin ella o decidirse a comprarla por su precio. ~ José Martí.
i El deber de un hombre es estar allí, donde es mas útil! ~ José Martí.
Con el cultivo de la inteligencia vienen los gustos costosos. ~ José Martí.
Los Pueblos tienen los Gobiernos que se merecen. ~ José Martí.
Yo he visto en la noche oscura llover sobre mi cabeza los rayos de lumbra pura de la divina belleza. ~ José Martí.
Injértese en nuestras Repúblicas el mundo; pero el tronco ha de ser el de nuestras Repúblicas. Y. ~ José Martí.
Trincheras de ideas valen más que trincheras de piedra. ~ José Martí.
Mientras mas honda la herida, Es mi canto mas hermoso. ~ José Martí.
Amor cuerdo, no es amor. ~ José Martí.
Sola la opresión debe temer al pleno ejercicio de la libertad. ~ José Martí.
So these were the 100 top Jose Marti quotes and sayings.
If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on Emil Cioran quotes and Simon Bolivar quotes.
