Quote

The wisest man I ever knew in my whole life could not read or write. At four o'clock in the morning, when the promise of a new day still lingered over French lands, he got up from his pallet and left for the fields, taking to pasture the half-dozen pigs whose fertility nourished him and his wife.

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
Ever
Morning
Clock
Pastures
Whole
Four
Fields
Fertility
Writing
Half
Promise
Nourished
Men
Read
Whose
Lands
Life
Write
Taking
Wisest
Left
Land
Pigs
Pallets
Stills
Wife
Dozen
Lingered
Still
Knew
French
Pasture

More quotes by Jose Saramago

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The only miracle we can perform is to go on living, said the woman, to preserve the fragility of life from day to day, as if it were blind and did not know where to go, and perhaps it is like that, perhaps it really does not know, it placed itself in our hands, after giving us intelligence.
Jose Saramago
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...this is the way fate usually treats us, it's right there behind us, it has already reached out a hand to touch us on the shoulder while we're still muttering to ourselves, It's all over, that's it, who cares anyhow.
Jose Saramago
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Dignity has no price ... when someone starts making small concessions, in the end life loses all meaning.
Jose Saramago
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If I could repeat my childhood, I would repeat it exactly as it was, with the poverty, the cold, little food, with the flies and pigs, all that.
Jose Saramago
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Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are.
Jose Saramago
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Why did we become blind, I don't know, perhaps one day we'll find out, Do you want me to tell you what I think, Yes, do, I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.
Jose Saramago
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The wise man contents himself with what he has, until such time as he invents something better.
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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For me, writing is a job. I do not separate the work from the act of writing like two things that have nothing to do with each other. I arrange words one after another, or one in front of another, to tell a story, to say something that I consider important or useful, or at least important or useful to me. It is nothing more than this.
Jose Saramago
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There is relationship between sight and touch, something about eyes being able to see through the fingers touching the clay, about fingers being able to feel what the eyes are seeing without the fingers actually touching it.
Jose Saramago
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Such is our need to shower blame on some distant entity when it is we who lack the courage to face up to what is there before us.
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 ear has to be educated if one wishes to appreciate musical sounds, just as the eyes must learn to distinguish the value of words.
Jose Saramago
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If I'm sincere today, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow?
Jose Saramago
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What kind of world is this that can send machines to Mars and does nothing to stop the killing of a human being?
Jose Saramago
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Whether we like it or not, the one justification for the existence of all religions is death, they need death as much as we need bread to eat.
Jose Saramago
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... that's how life should be, when one person loses heart, the other must have heart and courage enough for both.
Jose Saramago
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Doesn't anybody understand that killing in the name of God only makes Him a murderer?
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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...you have to leave the island in order to see the island, that we can't see ourselves unless we become free of ourselves, Unless we escape from ourselves you mean, No, that's not the same thing.
Jose Saramago