The 110 best phrases of José Saramago

José Saramago has been one of the best essayists, writers and journalists that the literary world has known, with its way of demonstrating social problems without giving up the beauty that can be achieved by prose. His way of reflecting social problems in his various works earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature.

In this article you will find a selection of the best phrases of José Saramago, commented.

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José Saramago's most memorable phrases

Next we will see a compilation with the best phrases and reflections of José Saramago, which show the way of thinking of this Portuguese writer.

1. If I am sincere today, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow?

There are times when we tend to regret something.

2. I have learned not to try to convince anyone. The work of convincing is disrespectful, it is an attempt to colonize the other.

We must never impose our ideas on others.

3. The defeat has something positive, is never final. On the other hand, victory has something negative: it is never final.

Everything in this life happens.

4. Writers live off the unhappiness of the world. In a brave new world, it wouldn't be written.

The world is full of many experiences worth writing about.

5. It is stupid to lose the present just for fear of not winning the future.

We have to live in the present, because it is what we really have.

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6. Every day things start, but sooner or later, they all end.

Nothing is eternal in life.

7. I am the grandson of a man who, sensing death […] went down to the orchard and went to say goodbye to the trees that he had planted and cared for, crying and hugging each one of them, as if it were a loved one.

A moment in his life that taught him that people can value the nature that surrounds them.

8. At no time in history, anywhere on the planet, have religions served to bring human beings closer to each other.

Love for others has nothing to do with religions, but with our convictions.

9. The journey never ends. Only travelers finish.

Life is a continuous journey.

10. The wisest man I have ever met in my life could not read or write.

Wisdom is gained through experience.

11. The best way to defend your own secrets is by respecting those of others.

Do not divulge the secrets that have been conferred on you, lest they do the same to you.

12. What kind of world is this that can send machines to Mars and do nothing to stop the murder of a human being?

People focus on doing things that are unimportant and neglect those that are.

13. Without death there is no resurrection, and without resurrection there is no church.

The resurrection is one of the bases that religions have.

14. Dissent is one of the rights missing from the Declaration of Human Rights.

Understanding and empathy towards other people's situations allows us to relate better to people.

15. The human being did not receive the gift of speech to hide his thoughts.

Thoughts and what is said often do not go hand in hand.

16. The more you dress up, the more you will look like yourself.

We stop being afraid to show ourselves when there is no pressure to be perfect.

17. The most important period in my literary career came at the beginning of the Revolution, and, in a way, it happened thanks to the Revolution.

A situation or some specific fact serves as inspiration.

18. Without a remote possibility of finding work, I dedicated myself exclusively to literature. It was time to find out what he was worth as a writer.

Life gives us opportunities that we must know how to take advantage of.

19. Liking is probably the best way to have, having must be the worst way to like.

Many times we believe that liking and having are synonyms and in reality they are not.

20. I do not write to please nor to dislike. I write to unsettle.

The things they do should be to please you, not others.

21. No matter how thick and black the clouds are overhead, the sky up there will always be blue.

Things, no matter how negative they seem, always have a solution.

22. Every man knows what he has, but he doesn't know what it's worth.

We only know what something is really worth when it is irretrievably lost.

23. Life looks like a straight line, but it is not.

Life is a very winding road.

24. We always end up arriving where we are expected.

The path always leads to the chosen destination.

25. The only people interested in changing the world are the pessimists, because the optimists are delighted with what there is.

The world is seen from two perspectives, whether it is optimism or pessimism, we are the only ones responsible for choosing the right view.

26. Everyone tells me that I have to exercise, that it is good for my health. But I have never heard anyone say to an athlete: you have to read.

Reading should always be encouraged for our development.

27. I think we are all blind. We are blind can see, but do not look.

We all look, but few are the ones who truly observe.

28. The energies always return when hope returns.

Hope is an engine that drives us to do things.

29. The moments do not warn when they come.

Something always comes that we do not expect.

30. The three illnesses of today's man are isolation, the technological revolution and his life centered on his personal triumph.

The human being has the power to focus only on his personal well-being, regardless of others.

31. Within us there is something that has no name and that is what we really are.

We have an essence that reflects who we are.

32. We are the memory we have and the responsibility we assume.

Being responsible must be something innate in us.

33. Words are just stones placed across the stream of a river. If they are there it is so that we can reach the other margin, the other margin is what matters.

Do not let the opinions of others truncate your dreams.

34. It is a lie that the Nobel serves to promote the literature of the country to which the winner belongs. The only thing it's worth is to add to the author's current account.

Acknowledgments are important to a person, but they do not define them.

35. Who is going to die is already dead and does not know it.

36. I believe that we are not blind, I believe that we are blind, blind people who see, blind people who, seeing, do not see.

There are things that we have with the naked eye and we do not see them.

37. Fear blinds.

And when it blinds us, it prevents us from moving forward.

38. Being a communist, socialist, or having any other ideology is a hormonal issue.

Ideologies are difficult subjects to understand.

39. Atheists are the most tolerant people in the world. A believer easily passes into intolerance.

You don't have to be a religious person to be respectful.

40. Just as the robe does not make the monk, the scepter does not make the king.

The external appearance does not always reflect the internal.

41. We can escape from everything except ourselves.

The only person who will always haunt us is oneself.

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42. I was a good student in elementary school. In the second year I didn't make any spelling mistakes, and I did the third and fourth in one year.

There are people who are very intelligent and take advantage of it.

43. Writing, for me, is a job. I don't separate work from the act of writing, as if they were different things.

You have to love what you do.

44. I have never felt the need for a triumph, the need to have a career, the need to be recognized, the need to be applauded, I have never felt it in my life.

Humility should be a fundamental virtue in every human being.

45. Before I start writing, I have to listen to what sounds in my head, because if I finish a sentence with all the sense, but that sentence lacks harmony and melody, it is still incomplete.

We must know how to listen to what our interior tells us so that we do not make so many mistakes.

46. The eyes make the diversity of the world and make wonders, even if they are made of stone, and the high prows, even if they are made of illusion.

Man manufactures truths and illusions.

47. The writer is just a poor devil who works.

The writer is just a person who also works for a living.

48. Dignity is priceless. When someone begins to give small concessions, in the end, life loses its meaning.

Don't let anyone want to control your life.

49. Only if we stop to think about the little things will we come to understand the big ones.

Simple things also have their charms.

50. Our children, after all, are as good or as bad as the others.

Every person has some good and some bad.

51. At all times I have not done anything more than what I had to do and the consequences have been these, they could have been others.

Doing the right thing also has its consequences.

52. Our only defense against death is love.

Love conquers all.

53. I would like to write a happy book; I have all the elements to be a happy man; but I just can't. However, there is one thing that does make me happy, and that is to say what I think.

Happiness is a choice.

54. Old age begins when one loses their curiosity.

Old age is not a matter of age, but of losing the ability to investigate and learn.

55. Neither youth knows what it can, nor old age can what it knows.

Every stage of life has its downside.

56. The worst pain is not the one felt now, but the one felt later when there is nothing that can be done.

When it is too late, we realize that there is no solution.

57. Being fired is the best thing that has ever happened to me. He made me stop to reflect. It was my birth as a writer.

Things happen for a reason.

58. My banners are called pages.

All his writing is his way of protesting.

59. I do not doubt that a man can live perfectly alone, but I am convinced that he begins to die as soon as he closes the door of his house behind him.

Living as a couple is the ideal state for man.

60. In truth, the first human devoid of that second skin we call selfishness has yet to be born.

Selfishness is an innate feeling in the human being.

61. Each one sees the world with the eyes that he has, and the eyes see what they want.

Each person sees the world from their own point of view.

62. He did not find an answer, the answers do not always come when one needs them, it often happens that waiting is the only possible answer.

The solution does not always come when it is needed.

63. Joy and pain are not like oil and water, but coexist.

Sadness and joy are part of life and we must learn to coexist with both.

64. There are moments in life, for the sky to open it is necessary for a door to close.

Failures are just lessons.

65. If you can look, you will see. If you can see it, fix it.

You have the ability to fix what no longer works.

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66. What is repentance for, if that doesn't erase anything that has happened.

Repentance does not solve what happened.

67. Consciences remain silent more than they should.

Having a conscience is not always worth something.

68. I dedicate myself to putting words one after another or before another, to tell a story, to say something that I think is important or useful, or, at least, important or useful for me.

Words are double-edged swords.

69. Every day that passes is a bit of history.

Have you thought that you are living in a historical moment of life?

70. Death does not need to be cruel. Taking someone's life is more than enough.

Death can often be the only fair alternative.

71. If literature could change the world, it would have already done so.

Knowledge, unfortunately, is not capable of changing the world.

72. I have not had to renounce communism to get the Nobel.

You don't have to give up something to achieve a goal.

73. It is what is that we have to live with, not what would be or could have been.

We have to learn to live with what we have.

74. Yes, I am pessimistic, but it is not my fault that reality is what it is.

The reality is something that sometimes we do not like.

75. God wanted what he did and he did what he wanted.

On the power of God's will.

76. Sometimes long lives mean loneliness.

Over the years, loneliness is the only company.

77. We all know that each day that is born is the first for some and will be the last for others and that, for most, it is just another day.

A new day represents different things for people.

78. Without memory we do not exist and without responsibility we may not deserve to exist.

We all have something to remember and obligations to fulfill.

79. I don't believe in God and I don't need him at all. At least I'm safe to be intolerant.

Talking about his impartiality in the face of differences of opinion, which is often biased by religious beliefs.

80. Now there is no doubt that the unconditional search for personal triumph implies profound loneliness. That solitude of the water that does not move.

Succeeding can mean in many cases being alone.

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81. If you want to harvest one day, roll up your sleeves and plant now.

What you do today will pay off tomorrow.

82. If you can look, you will see. If you can see it, fix it.

Do not sit idly by if you can improve something.

83. History is written from the point of view of the victors, the vanquished have never written history. And it is written, fatally, from a masculine point of view.

Women have been undervalued throughout history.

84. Americans have discovered fear.

On the exaggeration of Americans in situations.

85. They will clap their hands many times, many people will go out into the streets, and then they will forget about him, that is the law of life, triumph and oblivion.

What is joy today may be forgotten tomorrow.

86. Trees are very shy, they only grow when we are not looking at them.

We should always do things in private so that no one can intervene.

87. This small percentage, this five percent, is the result of being honest with oneself.

At all times you have to be completely honest.

88. To be a Marxist, it is enough for me to look at the world; to have faith, I must look at the sky and imagine that God is up there.

You just have to be convinced of something to believe in it.

89. Triumph has never been a goal for me.

We must not allow success to blind us.

90. If you have an iron heart, good luck. Mine, they made it out of meat, and it bleeds every day.

Ideally, we harbor good and empathetic feelings.

91. To continue living, we must die. That is the history of mankind, generation after generation.

Life and death, an inseparable duo.

92. When I am busy with work that wants continuity, like a novel, I write every day.

You have to have habits in order to be successful.

93. They say that time heals wounds, but no one has lived long enough to prove that theory.

Time helps us cope with difficult situations, but it does not ensure that we forget the trauma.

94. The wise man is content with what he has until he invents something better.

Being in constant evolution should be the norm.

95. Democracy has become 'an instrument of domination of economic power and has no capacity to control the abuses of this power.

Democracy also has its negative side.

96. Historical memory must be recovered, maintained and transmitted, because it begins with oblivion and ends with indifference.

It is essential to know our past and thus have a better future.

97. We used to like to say that the right was stupid, but nowadays I don't know anything more stupid than the left.

In all areas, there are stupid people.

98. You have to be very careful with what you think you know, because behind it lies an endless chain of unknowns.

You should never think you know it all.

99. Life is like that, it gives with one hand until the day comes when it takes everything away with the other.

Life is made of pleasant moments and when we least expect it, difficult situations arrive.

100. The Bible is a manual of bad habits, a catalog of cruelty and the worst of human nature.

Saramago expresses with these words his opinion about the Bible.

101. The older, the freer, and the freer, the more radical.

Freedom has its negative point.

102. They can also subsist in memory, in memory, in narration... the purpose of a trip is only the beginning of another trip

We remain as long as we are remembered.

103. The world is becoming a cave just like Plato's: everyone looking at images and believing they are reality.

The reality has many nuances.

104. People are born every day, it only depends on them to continue living yesterday or to start from the root and from the cradle the new day, today...

We must not live in the past, but here and now.

105. Will they say, in sound, the things that, in silence, in the silence of the eyes, we confess?

The gaze does not have the capacity to lie.

106. We always end up arriving where we are expected.

There is always something or someone waiting for us.

107. The best repentance is simply to change.

The only way to improve is to change what we have done and it has not worked out well for us.

108. I write because I don't like the world I'm living in.

It is important to find a way to change what we do not like.

109. I am not worried about death, I will dissolve into nothing.

Death should not be a taboo subject.

110. We build our lives on just five percent, the rest is done through others, because we live with others and sometimes against each other.

Unfortunately, we live around the opinions of others.