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. . . if there is a way for the world to be transformed for the better, it can only be done by pessimism optimists will never change the world for the better.

Jose Saramago

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Jose Saramago
Age: 87 †
Born: 1922
Born: November 16
Died: 2010
Died: June 18
Chronicler
Diarist
Dramaturge
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Translator
Writer
Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico
Jose Saramago
Never
Optimists
World
Pessimism
Optimist
Transformed
Change
Better
Done
Way

More quotes by Jose Saramago

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The sun appears in one of the upper corners of the rectangle, on the left of anyone looking at the picture.
Jose Saramago
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With the passing of time, as well as the social evolution and genetic exchange, we ended up putting our conscience in the colour of blood and in the salt of tears, and, as if that were not enough, we made our eyes into a kind of mirror turned inwards, with the result that they often show without reserve what we are verbally trying to deny.
Jose Saramago
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We are so afraid of the idea of having to die... that we always try to find excuses for the dead, as if we were asking beforehand to be excused when it is our turn.
Jose Saramago
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Human vocabulary is still not capable, and probably never will be, of knowing, recognizing, and communicating everything that can be humanly experienced and felt.
Jose Saramago
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A tree weeps when cut down, a dog howls when beaten, but a man matures when offended.
Jose Saramago
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I can't imagine myself outside any kind of social or political involvement.
Jose Saramago
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It is economic power that determines political power, and governments become the political functionaries of economic power.
Jose Saramago
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As so often happens, the thing left undone tires you most of all, you only feel rested when it has been accomplished.
Jose Saramago
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The novel is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by many rivers.
Jose Saramago
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A stomach accustomed to hunger is satisfied with very little.
Jose Saramago
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just like everything else in life, let time take its course and it will find a solution.
Jose Saramago
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God, the devil, good, evil, it's all in our heads, not in Heaven or Hell, which we also invented. We do not realize that, having invented God, we immediately became His slaves.
Jose Saramago
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I always ask two questions: How many countries have military bases in the United States? And in how many countries does the United States not have military bases?
Jose Saramago
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We never consider that the things dogs know about us are things of which we have not the faintest notion.
Jose Saramago
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Though I had come into the world on 16 November 1922, my official documents show that I was born two days later, on the 18th. It was thanks to this petty fraud that my family escaped from paying the fine for not having registered my birth at the proper legal time.
Jose Saramago
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Every second that passes is like a door that opens to allow in what has not yet happened, what we call the future, but, to challenge the contradictory nature of what we have just said, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the future is just an immense void, that the future is just the time on which the eternal present feeds.
Jose Saramago
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Without the faintest possibility of finding a job, I decided to devote myself to literature: it was about time to find out what I was worth as a writer.
Jose Saramago
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The world is governed by institutions that are not democratic - the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO.
Jose Saramago
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The world had already changed before September 11. The world has been going through a process of change over the last 20 or 30 years. A civilization ends, another one begins.
Jose Saramago
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If we cannot live entirely like human beings, at least let us do everything in our power not to live entirely like animals.
Jose Saramago