641 Quotes by José Saramago

Authoritarian, paralyzing, circular, occasionally elliptical stock phrases, also jocularly referred to as nuggets of wisdom, are a malignant plague, one of the very worst ever to ravage the earth.

... time is a master of ceremonies who always ends up putting us in our rightful place, we advance, stop, and retreat according to his orders, our mistake lies in imagining that we can catch him out.

Quien planta un árbol tampoco sabe si acabará ahorcándose en él

[...] with the protecting sky in all its splendour and the golden sun blazing forth against a backdrop of crystalline blue, to use the inspired words of a television reporter[...].

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.

The worst pain ... isn't the pain you feel at the time, it's the pain you feel later on when there's nothing you can do about it, They say that time heals all wounds, But we never live long enough to test that theory ...

C’est ma faute, pleurait-elle, et c’était la vérité, impossible de le nier, mais il était vrai aussi, si cela pouvait lui servir de consolation, que si avant chaque acte nous nous mettions à y réfléchir sérieusement, à en prévoir toutes les conséquences, d’abord les conséquences immédiates, puis les conséquences probables, puis les conséquences éventuelles, puis les conséquences imaginables, nous n’arriverions jamais à bouger de l’endroit où la première pensée nous aurait cloués sur place.

If I'm sincere today, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow?

We cannot see ourselves unless we become free of ourselves