57 phrases by José Luis Sampedro

José Luis Sampedro Sáez (1917-2013) was a Spanish writer and economist, recognized for his humanistic approach. His work not only explores economic themes, but he also wrote novels, short stories, theater and poetry. For this reason, he was awarded the National Prize for Spanish Letters in 2011..

Currently, the José Luis Sampedro Association of Friends is in charge of keeping the legacy of the Spanish economist alive. During his lifetime, he published more than 30 books, not all of them related to economic practice.. We selected 57 phrases by José Luis Sampedro in a tribute to his life and professional career.

The best phrases of José Luis Sampedro

José Luis remained active until the last years of his life. For example, in 2009 he published Humanistic economy. More than just numbers and in 2011 she gave birth Reaction to and Quartet for a soloist (the latter co-written with Olga Lucas). We leave you with some of the best phrases by José Luis Sampedro.

1. “There are two types of economists: those who work to make the rich richer and those who work to make the poor less poor.”

These words summarize very well the position of José Luis Sampedro in relation to economic practice.

2. “Freedom is like a kite. It flies because it is tied to the responsibility of the driver.”

Throughout these phrases by José Luis Sampedro, you will find many ideas about freedom. This is perhaps the best known of the economist.

3. “The system has organized a casino so that the same people always win.”

Although it has given the illusory idea that all participants play on equal terms.

4. “We have the duty to seek freedom.”

True freedom, not that which the system sells. Knowing the difference is very important.

5. “Austerity is very sad when it is imposed on us, but it doesn’t cost any work when you have it.”

Everything that is imposed by force is assumed as an obligation. Every obligation is carried out with pain and reluctance.

6. “Without freedom of thought, freedom of expression has no value.”

A stinging reflection of our phrases by José Luis Sampedro. Freedom of thought is a rare commodity in today’s society.

7. “What dominates people is fear, and it is about fear changing sides.”

Fear is a natural reaction that can be used as an instrument of manipulation. Many of society’s actions are directed on the basis of fear.

8. “Life is difficult navigation without a good compass.”

It is for this reason that those who do not have one in their hand, live aimlessly through life. Among other things, a fixed purpose embodies the role of a compass in reality.

9. “Battles must be fought, whether they are won or lost, for the very fact of fighting them.”

Sometimes you have no choice but to continue forward and charge with all your might.

10. “Serenity is only worth it when there is fire underneath.”

After all, true serenity is that which is practiced during a turbulent time.

11. “Achieving free thought in today’s society is difficult because democracy is perverted and kidnapped.”

Every system of political organization does what it must do to postpone itself for as long as possible.

12. “We should live as many times as the trees that, after a bad year, put out new leaves and start again.”

That is, experiencing several rebirths. Changing ideas and paradigms can give you more benefits than you think.

13. “Time is not money; “Gold is worthless, time is life.”

At the end of the day, time is the only thing you have. To waste it is to waste your own life with it..

14. “We are educated to be producers and consumers, not to be free men.”

Since we are children we are taught that we are only valuable as human beings when we produce and consume. Not doing so is the greatest “sin” of today’s society.

15. “I’m not interested in happiness. But not demanding too much makes it easier to get along with yourself, which is my substitute for happiness.”

Words by José Luis Sampedro that explore the idea that the humanist had about happiness.

16. “From childhood we are taught; first to believe what the authorities, the priests, the parents tell us… And then to reason about what we have believed. Freedom of thought is the other way around, the first thing is to reason and then we will believe what seems good to us about what we reason.”

As you can see, José Luis Sampedro set his sights on freedom of thought.

17. “When I say humanity I exaggerate, because I believe there is no humanity; there are human beings. We have been two thousand years since Ancient Greece, technical progress has been made in a fabulous, almost implausible way but we continue killing each other, not knowing how to live together on this planet. The man has not matured enough.”

Humanity is a general concept that in no context can be used as specific.

18. “Governing by fear is very effective. If you threaten people that you are going to cut their throats, and then you don’t cut their throats, but you exploit them, hitch them to a car… They will think; Well, at least he hasn’t cut our throats.”

Many governments use this simple idea during their administration. Those under his power, far from protesting, only limit themselves to consoling themselves for a less unpleasant outcome.

19. “The system is broken and lost, that’s why you have a future.”

Another of José Luis Sampedro’s short phrases that put the eye on the system’s sore spot.

20. “This world is betraying life.”

He has done it repeatedly without hardly any voice being raised about it.

21. “Power always wants the most absolute freedom for itself, and instead wants to prevent that freedom from being available to everyone else.”

After all, if freedom is available to everyone else, power cannot be said to concentrate it.

22. “Our time is for me, essentially, a time of barbarism. And I am not just referring to violence, but to a civilization that has degraded the values ​​that made up its nature. One value was justice.”

Many of the José Luis Sampedro phrases that we chose were obtained from the dozens of interviews he gave while he was alive.

23. “The question is to defend one’s own life, to defend one’s own truth and to defend it freely, because if not, it is not one’s own.”

Because truth and freedom can only be defended with action.

24. “The economic development – ​​and I am an economist – that they call sustainable, is absolutely unsustainable; Environmentalists know this very well.”

Works like The market and us (1986), The market and globalization (2002), About politics, market and coexistence (2006) and Humanistic economy. More than just numbers (2009) are some that make up the author’s catalog.

25. “Because it is by hitting rock bottom, even if it is in bitterness and degradation, where one comes to know who one is, and where one then begins to step firmly.”

It is at this point where you discover your capabilities, strengths and abilities. If you never hit rock bottom, you can’t know how much you can give of yourself..

26. “I don’t say that the past is the best. I say that capitalism was nascent at the time, but now it is unsustainable.”

The phrase is completed with the following words: “the best definition of its decline was given by Bush.” He said: I have suspended the market rules to save the market. That is, the market is incompatible with its own rules.”

27. “What has impressed me most about this 20th century that is ending is human stupidity and brutality.”

What a surprise, these are qualities that continue to impress in the 21st century.

28. “Putting money as the supreme good leads us to catastrophe.”

This does not mean disdaining money, of course. Hoarding it to the extreme is one of the causes of the limits of today’s society.

29. “The day one is born, one begins to die a little. We are used to seeing death as something negative, and I am so close that I can’t stop thinking about this matter. But I think with vital joy. What they don’t teach us is that the day you are born you begin to die, and death accompanies us every day.”

Death is one more step of life, its final chapter. Life would be meaningless without its final chapter.

30. “In your hunger you rule.”

Although the decision is in the hands of the powerful.

31.”Are people crazy? No, people are manipulated.”

Manipulation is another of the recurring themes of José Luis Sampedro’s phrases.

32. “It is amazing that humanity still does not know how to live in peace, that words like competitiveness rule over words like coexistence.”

You don’t have to think much to discover that competitiveness is assimilated as a virtue these days.

33. “Do we have a lot of free time to live ourselves, or do we constantly ask to be lived? “We have not learned to live!”

There are those who live a whole life without really living a single second.

34. “Societies are living entities and, as such, they have a trajectory that ends up exhausting itself. I believe that capitalism is on its last days in its current form. It has evolved: it began with mercantile capitalism, continued with industrial capitalism, then came financial capitalism and now globalization. And globalization is insufficient to guarantee them what they want.”

Sentence that complements other phrases about capitalism by José Luis Sampedro.

35. “Law and justice are quite different things from each other. “Sometimes they coincide.”

Seeing them coincide is something that we can very rarely do.

36. “The market is in the hands of the powerful. They say that the market is freedom, but I would like to know what freedom those who go without a cent have in the market. When we talk about freedom we must immediately ask ourselves: whose freedom?”

Freedom is a word that is repeated left and right. Most of those who use it do not know exactly what they are talking about.

37. “There is one thing that worries me: to what extent basic values ​​are being destroyed. I am no longer talking about human rights, but about justice, dignity, freedom, which are constitutive of civilization.”

They are destroyed under the noses of those who must defend them; that is, each of us.

38. “We men think that we direct events and history, but there are enormous limits, because we are not authors but protagonists of a script that writes life.”

You can’t control everything, and learning this will save you a lot of headaches.

39. “Religious teaching creates dogmatic thinking, a dogma is established and can no longer be discussed, free thought ends. Without it there is neither citizenship nor democracy.”

One of the most popular phrases about religion, by José Luis Sampedro.

40. “The current capitalist world has money as its reference, it makes everything a commodity. “We live in a moment of transformation and science is the tip of the spear.”

Almost everything around us, even the most intimate experiences, has been reduced to being a simple commodity object. Love, freedom and feelings, for example.

41. “You have to feel open and know how to accept. The ways…