Quotes by José Saramago

“The moral conscience that so many thoughtless people have offended against and many more have rejected, is something that exists and has always existed. It was not an invention of the philosophers ...”

“what is right and what is wrong are simply different ways of understanding our relationships with the others, not that which we have with ourselves”

“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.”

“There are such moments in life, when, in order for heaven to open, it is necessary for a door to close.”

“We've all had our moments of weakness, and if we manage to get through today without any, we'll be sure to have some tomorrow.”

“There is nothing healthier for a man than to walk on his own two legs”

“Virtue, should there be anyone who still ignores the fact, always finds pitfalls on the extremely difficult path of perfection, but sin and vice are so favoured by fortune...”

“One can show no greater respect than to weep for a stranger.”

“There are things we do automatically, our body, acting on its own, avoids inconvenience whenever possible, that is why we sleep on the eve of battle or execution, and why ultimately we die when we ...”

“The threat of rain appears to have nothing to do with Joao Elvas's desire to be alone, and one must not forget that, strange as it may seem, some men can spend their entire life alone and enjoy sol...”

“Time and time again one has seen, even in people not particularly given to reflection, that the best way of finding a solution is to let one’s thoughts drift until the right moment comes to pounce,...”

“... that's how life should be, when one person loses heart, the other must have heart and courage enough for both.”

“...the human being to lack that second skin we call egoism has not yet been born, it lasts much longer than the other one, that bleeds so readily.”

“Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered.”

“Fear can cause blindness, said the girl with dark glasses, Never a truer word, that could not be truer, we were already blind the moment we turned blind, fear struck us blind, fear will keep us bli...”

“…the worshipers here are not likely to kill one another, they all offer the same sacrifice, and how the fat spits and the carcasses sizzle as God in the sublime heavens inhales the odors of all thi...”

“This is neither the time nor the place, however, to ponder how often the soul, in order to be able to boast of a clean body, has burdened itself with sadness, envy, and impurity.”

“...sleep is a skilled magician, it changes the proportions of things, the distances between them, it separates people and they're lying next to each other, brings them together and they can barely ...”

“He imagined that he was looking for her and couldn't find her anywhere, that the two of them were lost on a vast ship, sleep is a skilled magician, it changes the proportions of things, the distanc...”

“These earthenware bowls are fragile and easily broken, they are only made of a little clay on which fortune has precariously bestowed a shape, and the same could be said of mankind.”