José Saramago > Quotes

“Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“We use words to understand each other and even, sometimes, to find each other.”
― José Saramago

“Men are all the same, they think that because they came out of the belly of a woman they know all there is to know about women.”
― José Saramago

“Reading is probably another way of being in a place.”
― José Saramago, El Hombre Duplicado

“Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered”
― José Saramago, The Double

“. . . 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. ”
― José Saramago

“I think we are blind. Blind people who can see, but do not see.”
― José Saramago

“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.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“You know the name you were given, you do not know the name that you have”
― José Saramago

“Your questions are false if you already know the answer.”
― José Saramago

“...in matters of feeling and of the heart, too much is always better than too little.”
― José Saramago, The Cave

“Los únicos interesados en cambiar el mundo son los pesimistas, porque los optimistas están encantados con lo que hay.”
― José Saramago

“Se podes olhar, vê. Se podes ver, repara.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“Forgive me if what has seemed little to you, to me is all.”
― José Saramago

“Words that come from the heart are never spoken, they get caught in the throat and can only be read in ones's eyes.”
― José Saramago

“Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“A tree weeps when cut down, a dog howls when beaten, but a man matures when offended. ”
― José Saramago

“Words are like that, they deceive, they pile up, it seems they do not know where to go, and, suddenly, because of two or three or four that suddenly come out, simple in themselves, a personal pronoun, an adverb, an adjective, we have the excitement of seeing them coming irresistibly to the surface through the skin and the eyes and upsetting the composure of our feelings, sometimes the nerves that can not bear it any longer, they put up with a great deal, they put up with everything, it was as if they were wearing armor, we might say.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“Words were not given to man in order to conceal his thoughts”
― José Saramago

“We never consider that the things dogs know about us are things of which we have not the faintest notion.”
― José Saramago, Death with Interruptions

“Liking is probably the best form of ownership, and ownership the worst form of liking.”
― José Saramago, The Tale of the Unknown Island

“Oh, I'm not just going too far, I've arrived.”
― José Saramago, Seeing

“We all have our moments of weakness, just as well that we are still capable of weeping, tears are often our salvation, there are times when we would die if we did not weep - Blindness”
― José Saramago

“When all is said and done, what is clear is that all lives end before their time.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“One cannot be too careful with words, they change their minds just as people do.”
― José Saramago, Death with Interruptions

“As so often happens, the thing left undone tires you most of all, you only feel rested when it has been accomplished.”
― José Saramago

“When we are born, when we enter this world, it is as if we signed a pact for the rest of our life, but a day may come when we will ask ourselves Who signed this on my behalf?”
― José Saramago

“Because each of you has his or her own death, you carry it with you in a secret place from the moment you're born, it belongs to you and you belong to it.”
― José Saramago

“blindness is a private matter between a person and the eyes with which he or she was born.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“If I'm sincere today, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow?”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“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.”
― José Saramago

“Há esperanças que é loucura ter. Pois eu digo-te que se não fossem essas já eu teria desistido da vida.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“We say Fine, even though we may be dying, and this is commonly known as taking one's courage in both hands, a phenomenon that has only been observed in the human species.”
― José Saramago

“Se antes de cada acto nosso nos puséssemos a prever todas as consequências dele, a pensar nelas a sério, primeiro as imediatas, depois as prováveis, depois as possíveis, depois as imagináveis, não chegaríamos sequer a mover-nos de onde o primeiro pensamento nos tivesse feito parar.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“but it is also true, if this brings her any consolation, that if, before every action, we were to begin weighing up the consequences, thinking about them in earnest, first the immediate consequences, then the probably, then the possible, then the imaginable ones, we should never move beyond the point where our first thought brought us to a halt.”
― José Saramago

“...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.”
― José Saramago, The Tale of the Unknown Island

“What does reading do, You can learn almost everything from reading, But I read too, So you must know something, Now I'm not so sure, You'll have to read differently then, How, The same method doesn't work for everyone, each person has to invent his or her own, whichever suits them best, some people spend their entire lives reading but never get beyond reading the words on the page, they don't understand that the words are merely stepping stones placed across a fast-flowing river, and the reason they're there is so that we can reach the farther shore, it's the other side that matters, Unless, Unless what, Unless those rivers don't have just two shores but many, unless each reader is his or her own shore, and that shore is the only shore worth reaching.”
― José Saramago, The Cave

“...the habit of falling hardens the body, reaching the ground, to in itself, is a relief.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“As my cat would say, all hours are good for sleeping.”
― José Saramago, Seeing

“The minds of human beings are not always entirely at one with the world in which they live, some people have trouble adjusting to reality, basically they're just weak, confused spirits who use words, sometimes very skillfully, to justify their cowardice.”
― José Saramago

“You never know beforehand what people are capable of, you have to wait, give it time, it's time that rules, time is our gambling partner on the other side of the table and it holds all the cards of the deck in its hand, we have to guess the winning cards of life, our lives.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“Don't be afraid, the darkness you're in is no greater than the darkness inside your own body, they are two darknesses separated by a skin, I bet you've never thought of that, you carry a darkness about with you all the time and that doesn't frighten you...my dear chap, you have to learn to live with the darkness outside just as you learned to live with the darkness inside”
― José Saramago, All the Names

“...sometimes we ask ourselves why happiness took so long to arrive, why it didn't come sooner, but appears suddenly, as now, when we've given up hope of it ever arriving, it's likely then that we won't know what to do, and rather than it being a question of choosing between laughter and tears, we will be filled by a secret anxiety to which we might not know how to respond at all.”
― José Saramago, The Double

“Gostar é provavelmente a melhor maneira de ter,
ter deve ser a pior maneira de gostar.”
― José Saramago

“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.”
― José Saramago, Death with Interruptions

“Si antes de cada acción, pudiésemos prever todas sus consecuencias,
nos pusiésemos a pensar en ellas seriamente, primero en las consecuencias inmediatas, después, las probables, más tarde las posibles, luego las imaginables, no llegaríamos siquiera a movernos de donde el primer pensamiento nos hubiera hecho detenernos.”
― José Saramago

“I consider books to be good for our health, and also our spirits, and they help us to become poets or scientists, to understand the stars or else to discover them deep within the aspirations of certain characters, those who sometimes, on certain evenings, escape from the pages and walk among us humans, perhaps the most human of us all.”
― José Saramago

“Words have their own hierarchy, their own protocol, their own artistic titles, their own plebeian stigmas.”
― José Saramago, Death with Interruptions

“O drama não é que as pessoas tenham opiniões, mas sim que as tenham sem saber do que falam.”
― José Saramago

“Just as the habit does not make the monk, the sceptre does not make the king.”
― José Saramago, Blindness