Famous Quotes & Sayings

Eduardo Galeano Quotes & Sayings

Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Eduardo Galeano.

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Famous Quotes By Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1712442

There are visible and invisible dictators. The power structure of world football is monarchical. It's the most secret kingdom in the world. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 280970

The diversity of life is so stimulating for me. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 929639

The more the technocrats programme it down to the smallest detail, the more the powerful manipulate it, football continues to be the art of the unforeseeable. When you least expect it, the impossible occurs: the dwarf teaches the giant a lesson, and a scraggy, bow-legged black man makes an athlete sculpted in Greece look ridiculous. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1395628

Lying in the sun, he follows the unhurried paths of seagulls and sailboats, the azure breeze, the ebb and flow of foam on the water and in the air. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 228234

The poet, distracted by politics, asks of poetry that it make itself useful like metal or flour, that it get ready to stain its face with coal dust and fight body to body. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 2241166

I know I can be accused of sacrilege in writing about political economy in the style of a novel about love or pirates. But I confess I get a pain from reading valuable works by certain sociologists, political experts, economists and historians who write in code. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 719091

Every two weeks, a language dies. The world is diminished when it loses its human sayings, just as when it loses its diversity of plants and beasts. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 2125120

The fiesta of soccer, a feast for the legs that play and the eyes that watch, is much more than a big business run by overlords from Switzerland. The most popular sport in the world wants to serve the people who embrace it. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1869365

The Latin American cause is about all a social cause: the rebirth of Latin America must start with the overthrow of its masters, country by country. We are entering times of rebellion and change. There are those who believe that destiny rests on the knees of the gods; but the truth is that it confronts the conscience of man with a burning challenge. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 247873

I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead, 'A pretty move, for the love of God.' And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle, and I don't give a damn which team or country performs it. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 564625

In 1492, the natives discovered they were indians, discovered they lived in America, discovered they were naked, discovered that the Sin existed, discovered they owed allegiance to a King and Kingdom from another world and a God from another sky, and that this God had invented the guilty and the dress, and had sent to be burnt alive who worships the Sun the Moon the Earth and the Rain that wets it. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 228788

The Revolution, after discovering that it had confused the knife with the assassin, turned sugar, which had been responsible for underdevelopment, into an instrument of development. There was no alternative, born of Cuba's incorporation into the world market, to break the spine of that monoculture and dependence. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1698720

The ways of change are dictated by the circumstances of each country, each place and each time. I don't think that arrogant intellectuals should be dictating to the people which way they should be heading. I think we should be listening to the people, see in which directions things are developing. People are walking where they can, not where they want to. But they are walking! — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 279667

The Armadillo A big fiesta was announced on Lake Titicaca, and the armadillo, who was a very superior creature, wanted to dazzle everybody. Long beforehand, he set to weaving a cloak of such elegance that it would knock all eyes out. The fox noticed him at work. "Are you in a bad mood?" "Don't distract me. I'm busy." "What's that for?" The armadillo explained. "Ah," said the fox, savoring the words, "for the fiesta tonight?" "What do you mean, tonight?" The armadillo's heart sank. He had never been more sure of his time calculations. "And me with my cloak only half finished!" While the fox took off with a smothered laugh, the armadillo finished the cloak in a hurry. As time was flying, he had to use coarser threads, and the weave ended up too big. For this reason the armadillo's shell is tight-warped around the neck and very open at the back. (174) — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1902939

Today we must begin again. Step by small step, without any more protection than comes from our own bodies. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1749096

I am astonished each time I come to the U.S. by the ignorance of a high percentage of the population, which knows almost nothing about Latin America or about the world. It's quite blind and deaf to anything that may happen outside the frontiers of the U.S. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 575816

Indignation must always be the answer to indignity. Reality is not destiny. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1473920

The world is becoming an immense military base, and that base is becoming a mental hospital the size of the world. Inside the nuthouse, which ones are crazy? — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 770158

The capitalist "head office" can allow itself the luxury of creating
and believing its own myths of opulence, but the poor countries on the
capitalist periphery know that myths cannot be eaten. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 292025

I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 243063

Human rights pale beside the rights of machines. In more and more cities, especially in the great metropolises of the South, people have been banned. Automobiles usurp human space, poison the air, and frequently murder the interlopers who invade their conquered territory -and no one lifts a finger to stop them. Is there a difference between violence that kills by car and that which kills by knife or bullet? (p.231) — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 865813

I can't sleep. There is a woman stuck between my eyelids. I would tell her to get out if I could. But there is a woman stuck in my throat — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 477326

Almost all wars, perhaps all, are trade wars connected with some material interest. They are always disguised as sacred wars, made in the name of God, or civilization or progress. But all of them, or almost all of the wars, have been trade wars. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 330964

The purpose of torture is not getting information. It's spreading fear. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 537374

If the past has nothing to say to the present, history may go on sleeping undisturbed in the closet where the system keeps its old disguises. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 2013553

We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 546758

From the weak nations' point of view, it is better if there are many powerful countries then if there are just a few. The more concentrated is power, the fewer opportunities there are to move. Space for change, space for freedom to implement change is then very narrow; very small. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1410520

Most of wars or military coups or invasions are done in the name of democracy against democracy. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 707819

The big bankers of the world, who practise the terrorism of money, are more powerful than kings and field marshals, even more than the Pope of Rome himself. They never dirty their hands. They kill no-one: they limit themselves to applauding the show. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1095609

The division of labor among nations is that some specialize in winning and others in losing. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1255654

Always in all my books I'm trying to reveal or help to reveal the hidden greatness of the small, of the little, of the unknown - and the pettiness of the big. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 742275

The Crocodile The sun of the Macusi people was worried. Every day there were fewer fish in their ponds. He put the crocodile in charge of security. The ponds got emptier. The crocodile, security guard and thief, invented a good story about invisible assailants, but the sun didn't believe it, took a machete, and left the crocodile's body all crisscrossed with cuts. To calm him down, the crocodile offered his beautiful daughter in marriage. "I'll be expecting her," said the sun. As the crocodile had no daughter, he sculpted a woman in the trunk of a wild plum tree. "Here she is," he said, and plunged into the water, looking out of the corner of his eye, the way he always looks. It was the woodpecker who saved his life. Before the sun arrived, the woodpecker pecked at the wooden girl below the belly. Thus she, who was incomplete, was open for the sun to enter. (112) — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 147000

The goal is soccer's orgasm. And like orgasms, goals have become an ever less frequent occurrence in modern life. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 450596

The population becomes the internal enemy. Any sign of life, of protest, or even mere doubt, is a dangerous challenge from the standpoint of military doctrine and national security. So complicated mechanisms of prevention adn punishment have been developed ... To operate effectively, the repression must appear arbitrary. Apart from breathing, any human activity can constitute a crime ... State terrorism aims to paralyze the population with fear. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 891037

We are what we do, especially what we do to change what we are ... In
this respect a "revolutionary" literature written for the convinced is just as
much an abandonment as is a conservative literature devoted to the ...
contemplation of one's own navel. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 723547

The food of the minority is the hunger of the majority. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1333115

It has become unecesssary for the police to ban books: their price alone bans them. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1934195

If women were necessary, God would have one. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1253632

A pretty move, for the love of God. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 591206

The wages Haiti requires by law belong in the department of science fiction: actual wages on coffee plantations vary from $.07 to $.15 a day — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1370739

Any open net was an unforgivable crime meriting immediate punishment, and [Di Stefano] carried out the sentence by stabbing at it like a mischievous elf. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1682840

Soccer, metaphor for war, at times turns into real war. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1477828

The dreams were off on a trip. Helena went as far as the train station with them. She bade them farewell from the platform, waving a handkerchief — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1494157

If nature were a bank, they would have already rescued it. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1461072

Bolivians die with rotted lungs so that the world may consume cheap tin. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1625844

It's a difficult competition against silence, because silence is a perfect language, the only language which says with no words. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1703505

Don't you see? There were no doctors in Paradise. Disease came after doctors. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1559215

The Revolution is indeed living thorough the hard times of transition and sacrifice. The Cubans themselves have learned that socialism is built with clenched teeth and that revolution is no evening stroll. But afterall, if the future came on a platter, it would not be of this world. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1915863

In this world which is losing faith in so called representative democracy, there are new developments in participatory democracy. These are very interesting developments, reflecting the revitalization of community power with a more and more active presence of minorities in political life, including the presence of women who are of course by no means a minority. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1717100

Mosquitos There were many dead in the Nootkas village. In each dead body there was a hole through which blood had been stolen. The murderer, a child who was already killing before he learned to walk, received his sentence roaring with laughter. They pierced him with lances and he laughingly picked them out of his body like thorns. "I'll teach you to kill me," said the child. He suggested to his executioners that they should light a big bonfire and throw him into it. His ashes scattered through the air, anxious to do harm, and thus the first mosquitos started to fly. (174) — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1797018

The walls are the publishers of the poor. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1872129

When a book is alive, really alive, you feel it. You put it to your ear here, and you feel it breathe, sometimes laugh, sometimes cry, just like a person, a little person. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1907871

My language is a feel-thinking language, feeling and thinking at once, that is why it is a celebration of life, and at once it is a denunciation of everything that is not allowed in life to be real life, it's plenitude. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1125220

Reality is very, very contradictory, and so I try to write just perfecting what I see, what I read, what I feel, in a feel-thinking way. Not only giving ideas, or receiving ideas, or trying to explain something, but mainly feel-thinking, a feel-thinking language able to tie the heart and the mind, which have been divorced. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1985176

Whoever believes physical size and tests of speed or strength have anything to do with a soccer player's prowess is sorely mistaken. Just as mistaken as those who believe that IQ tests have anything to do with talent or that there is a relationship between penis size and sexual pleasure. Good soccer players need not to be titans sculpted by Michelangelo. In soccer, ability is much more important than shape, and in many cases skill is the art of turning limitations into virtues. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1989147

A unipolar world - one with only one power - makes sure that this space almost disappears. In a multipolar world this space multiplies. Therefore, there is nostalgia for a multipolar world. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 2072518

I wanted to be a soccer player, and I became the best of the best, the number one, better than Maradona, better than Pele, and even better than Messi - but only at night, nighttime, during my dreams. When I wake up, I realized that I have wooden legs and that I'm doomed to be a writer. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 2082334

Our effectiveness depends on our capacity to be audacious and astute, clear and appealing. I would hope that we can create a language more fearless and beautiful than that used by conformist writers to greet the twilight. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 2085370

Each day has a story to - deserves to be told, because we are made of stories. I mean, scientists say that human beings are made of atoms, but a little bird told me that we are also made of stories. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 2087587

Throughout the history of humanity, only one refuge kept books safe from war and conflagration: the walking library, an idea that occurred to the grand vizier of Persia, Abdul Kassem Ismael, at the end of the tenth century. This — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 2101045

I have never killed anybody, it is true, but it is because I lacked the courage or the time, not because I lacked the desire — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 2112290

I'm not asking you to describe the rain falling the night the archangel arrived; I'm demanding that you get me wet. Make up your mind, Mr. Writer, and for once in your life be the flower that smells rather than the chronicler of the aroma. There's not much pleasure in writing what you live. The challenge is to live what you write. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 2171454

The world,' he revealed, 'is a heap of people, a sea of tiny flames.'
Each person shines with his or her own light. No two flames are alike. There are big flames and little flames, flames of every colour. Some peoples flames are so still they don't even flicker in the wind, while others have wild flames that fill the air with sparks. Some foolish flames neither burn nor shed light, but others blaze with life so fiercely that you can't look at them without blinking and if you approach, you shine in fire. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 2207513

Is everything forbidden us except to fold our arms? Poverty is not written in the stars; under development is not one of God's mysterious designs. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 2253207

Many small people, in small places, doing small things can change the world. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 493997

I think the purpose of the writer is to help us see. The writer is someone who can perhaps have the joy of helping others see. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 798169

There are some writers who feel they are elected by God. I am not. I am elected by the devil - this is clear. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 689254

I am not particularly interested in
saving time; I prefer to enjoy it. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 648012

Curious People
Soledad, five, daughter of Juanita Fernandez: "Why don't dogs eat dessert?"
Vera, six, daughter of Elsa Villagra: "Where does night sleep? Does night sleep here under the bed?"
Luis, seven, son of Francisca Bermudez: "Will God be angry if I don't believe in him? I don't know how to tell him."
Marcos, nine, son of Silvia Awad: "If God made himself, how did he make his back?"
Carlitos, forty, son of Maria Scaglione: "Mama, how old was I when you weaned me? My psychiatrist wants to know. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 622596

The tree of life knows that, whatever happens, the warm music spinning around it will never stop. However much death may come, however much blood may flow, the music will dance men and women as long as the air breaths them and the land plows and loves them. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 618380

I would recognise myself in each of his translations and he would feel betrayed and annoyed whenever I didn't write something the way he would have. A part of me died with him, a part of him lives with me. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 610858

It happened in Chicago in 1886.
On the first of May, strikes paralyzed cities across the country. The Philadelphia Tribune offered a diagnosis: 'The labor element has been bitten by a kind of universal tarantula - it has gone dancing mad.'
Dancing mad were the workers who fought for the eight-hour day and for the right to form unions
...
On every May first, the entire world remembers them. With the passing of time, constitutions, laws, and international accords have proved them right.
But some of the most powerful corporations have yet to find out. They outlaw unions and keep track of the workday with those melting clocks painted by Salvador Dali. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 562644

Other versions, however, insist the 'but' was snuck in. She sang: 'I am black and I am beautiful. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 494723

Unlike solidarity, which is horizontal and takes place between equals, charity is top-down, humiliating those who receive it and never challenging the implicit power relations. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 876073

Soccer is a feast for the eyes that watch it and a joy for the body that plays it — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 431974

History never really says goodbye. History says, 'See you later.' — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 383735

A lot of leftists think it is soccer's fault that people don't think, while most rightists are convinced that soccer is a proof that people think with their feet. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 357957

Good Health At the busstop a swarm of youngsters crowded on board. Loaded down with books and notebooks and other stuff, they filled the bus with nonstop chatter and laughter. Talking all at once, shouting, pushing, showing off, they laughed at anything and everything. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 332044

To narrate is to give oneself: it seems obvious that literature, as an effort to communicate fully, will continue to be blocked so long as misery and illiteracy exist, and so long as the possessors of power continue to carry on with impunity their policy of collective imbecilization through the mass media. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 207283

This work is a torture on the rump but a joy to the heart. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 139818

The voyages of the great Chinese fleet were missions of exploration and commerce. They were not enterprises of conquest. No yearning for domination obliged Zheng to scorn or condemn what he found. What was not admirable was at least worthy of curiosity. And from trip to trip, the imperial library in Beijing continued growing until it held four thousand books that collected the wisdom of the world.
At the time, the king of Portugal had six books. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 111695

Susan Abdallah, a Palestinian, knows the recipe for making a terrorist:
Deprive him of food and water.
Surround his home with the machinery of war.
Attack him with all means at all times, especially at night.
Demolish is home, uproot his farmland, kill his loved ones.
Congratulations: you have created an army of suicide bombers. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 107173

The human rainbow had been mutilated by machismo, racism, militarism and a lot of other isms, who have been terribly killing our greatness, our possible greatness, our possible beauty. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1126836

If thats how it was done, and thats how it had always been done, there had to be a reason — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1326226

The Bear The day animals and the night animals got together to decide what they would do about the sun, which then came and went whenever it liked. The animals resolved to leave the problem to fate. The winning group in the game of riddles would decide how long the world would have sunlight in the future. They were still talking when the sun approached, intrigued by the discussion. The sun came so close that the night animals had to scatter. The bear was a victim of the general flurry. He put his right foot into his left moccasin and his left foot into his right moccasin, and took off on the run as best he could. According to the Comanches, since then the bear walks with a lurch. (132) — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1324541

Where do people earn the Per Capita Income? More than one poor starving soul would like to know. In our countries, numbers live better than people. How many people prosper in times of prosperity? How many people find their lives developed by development? — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1307309

There are those who believe destiny rests at the feet of the gods, but the truth is that it confronts the conscious of man with a burning challenge. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1240346

The three inventions that made the Renaissance possible, the compass, gunpowder, and the printing press, came from China. The Babylonians scooped Pythagoras by fifteen hundred years. Long before anyone else, the Indians knew the world was round, and had calculated its age. And better than anyone else, the Mayans knew the stars, eyes of the night, and the mysteries of time.
Such details were not worthy of Europe's attention. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1230315

The Church says: the body is a sin.
Science says: the body is a machine.
Advertising says: The body is a business.
The Body says: I am a fiesta. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1217503

Here in the United States, corporations has human rights. And then why not - why not nature also, if corporations can defend themselves, saying, 'We have human rights?' Well, let's admit that nature also should be protected. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1209551

And one fine day the goddess of the wind kisses the foot of man, that mistreated, scorned foot, and from that kiss the soccer idol is born. He is born in a straw crib in a tin-roofed shack and he enters the world clinging to a ball. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1168295

Chaplin and Keaton are still the best. They know that there is nothing more serious than laughter, an art demanding infinite work, and that as long as the world revolves, making others laugh is the most splendid of activities. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1391696

His legs have a mind of their own, his foot shoots by itself ... Roberto Baggio is a big horsetail that flicks away opponents as he flows forward in an elegant wave. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 88674

Helena dreamed about the keepers of the fire. The poorest old women had stored it away in suburban kitchens and had only to blow very gently on their palms to rekindle the flame — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1107901

From 8 A.M. until noon, I am pessimistic. Then from 1 P.M. until 4, I feel optimistic. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1033129

The manager believes soccer is a science and the field a laboratory, but the genius of Einstein and the subtlety of Freud is not enough for the owners and the fans. They want a miracle worker like Our Lady of Lourdes, with the stamina of Gandhi. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 1032741

Lady Gough's Book of Etiquette, published in 1863, established some of the social commandments of the times: one must avoid, for example, the intolerable proximity of male and female authors on library shelves. Books could only stand together if the authors were married, such as in the case of Robert and Elizabeth Browning. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 969026

[Garrincha] was the one who would climb out of the training camp window because he heard from some far-off back alley call of a ball asking to be played with, music demanding to be danced to, a woman wanting to be kissed. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 932299

Whatever Latin America sells - raw materials or manufactures - its chief export product is really cheap labor. — Eduardo Galeano

Eduardo Galeano Quotes 876769

It is highly improbable that the bureaucrat will put his life on the line. It is absolutely impossible that he'll put his job on the line. — Eduardo Galeano