Cowardice rightly understood begins with selfishness and ends with shame.

But because their ancestors were men of righteousness, shall we consent to the abuses of their degenerate descendants? Because they did us a great good, would we be guilty if we prevented them from doing us evil?

I honor the father in his son, not the son in his father. Each one receives a reward or punishment for his deeds, but not for the acts of others.

No, let us not make God in our image, poor inhabitants that we are of a distant planet lost in infinite space. However brilliant and sublime our intelligence may be, it is scarcely more than a small spark which shines and in an instant is extinguished, and it alone can give us no idea of that blaze, that conflagration, that ocean of light!

No one blames a pilot who takes refuge in port when the storm begins to blow. It is not cowardice to duck under a bullet; what is wrong is to defy it only to fall and never rise again.

How long have you been away from the country?" Laruja asked Ibarra. "Almost seven years." "Then you have probably forgotten all about it." "Quite the contrary. Even if my country does seem to have forgotten me, I have always thought about it.

I can concede that the government has no knowledge of the people, but I believe the people know less of the government. There are useless officials, evil, if you like, but there are also good ones, and these are not able to accomplish anything because they encounter an inert mass, the population that takes little part in matters that concern them.