Jose Saramago Quote
That's a rather subversive idea, isn't it? Do you think so? I don't. If it is subversive, then everything else is too, even breathing. I feel and think as naturally and necessarily as I breathe. If men hate each other, then there is not hope. We will all be the victims of that hate. We will slaughter each other in wars we don't want and for which we're not responsible. They'll put a flag in front of us and fill ours ears with words. And why? To plant the seeds for a new war, to create more hatred, to create new flags and new words. Is that why we're here? To have children and hurl them into the fiery furnace? To build cities and then raze them to the ground? To long for peace and have war instead? And would love solve everything, asked Able with a sad, slightly ironic smile. I don't know. It's the only thing we haven't tried so far... And will we be in time? Possibly. If those who suffer can be convinced that it's true, then yes, we might be in time... He paused, as if assailed by a sudden thought, But don't forget, Abel, you must love with a love that is lucid and active! And make sure that the active side never forgets abut the lucid side and that the active side never commits the same kind of villainous deeds as those who want men to hate each other. Active, but lucid. And above all, lucid!
That's a rather subversive idea, isn't it? Do you think so? I don't. If it is subversive, then everything else is too, even breathing. I feel and think as naturally and necessarily as I breathe. If men hate each other, then there is not hope. We will all be the victims of that hate. We will slaughter each other in wars we don't want and for which we're not responsible. They'll put a flag in front of us and fill ours ears with words. And why? To plant the seeds for a new war, to create more hatred, to create new flags and new words. Is that why we're here? To have children and hurl them into the fiery furnace? To build cities and then raze them to the ground? To long for peace and have war instead? And would love solve everything, asked Able with a sad, slightly ironic smile. I don't know. It's the only thing we haven't tried so far... And will we be in time? Possibly. If those who suffer can be convinced that it's true, then yes, we might be in time... He paused, as if assailed by a sudden thought, But don't forget, Abel, you must love with a love that is lucid and active! And make sure that the active side never forgets abut the lucid side and that the active side never commits the same kind of villainous deeds as those who want men to hate each other. Active, but lucid. And above all, lucid!
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About Jose Saramago
More than two million copies of Saramago's books have been sold in Portugal alone and his work has been translated into 25 languages. A proponent of libertarian communism, Saramago criticized institutions such as the Catholic Church, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. An atheist, he defended love as an instrument to improve the human condition. In 1992, the Government of Portugal under Prime Minister Aníbal Cavaco Silva ordered the removal of one of his works, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, from the Aristeion Prize's shortlist, claiming the work was religiously offensive. Disheartened by this political censorship of his work, Saramago went into exile on the Spanish island of Lanzarote, where he lived alongside his Spanish wife Pilar del Río until his death in 2010.
Saramago was a founding member of the National Front for the Defense of Culture in Lisbon in 1992.