5 Phrases By Eduardo Galeano That Will Make Us Think

Born in Montevideo in 1940, Eduardo Galeano has left us an invaluable legacy, both as a journalist and as a writer. His  real name was Eduardo Germán María Hughes Galeano, but he adopted his mother’s surname to sign his literary work. Eduardo Galeano’s reflections and phrases penetrate the soul of those who read them.

Galeano first became famous for his keen historical research on Latin America. As a journalist, he was always critical and uncompromising. Then he took his work to the literary plane and then he became a wonderful author, with a very own poetics that conquered thousands of hearts.

Eduardo Galeano left a profuse work composed of essays, chronicles, articles, stories, novels and poems. He received six honorary doctorates from various universities and also the Stig Dagerman award, one of the most prestigious in Sweden.

He left us as a legacy sentences full of ingenuity and depth. His language “sentipensante” has inspired entire generations. Today, more than ever, he lives through his work. We have compiled some of the wonderful phrases of Eduardo Galeano to the delight of our readers.

The best phrases of Eduardo Galeano

1. Everyone is unique, says Galeano

“ Each person shines with his own light among all the others. No two fires are the same. There are big fires and small fires and fires of all colors ”. This is one of Eduardo Galeano’s phrases that leads us to reflect on the difference between people and the value that these differences mark.

Variety is beauty. That is why the colors are different and together they make up the spectacle of the multiple. Trying to standardize thoughts, ways of being and feeling is to deprive reality of one of its best gifts: its heterogeneity.

2. The culture of packaging

“ We are in full container culture . The marriage contract matters more than love, the funeral more than the dead, the clothes more than the body and the mass more than God . Here Galeano argues that in today’s world appearance is more important than essence.

At the moment excessive importance is given to the external form. For many it is more important to appear than to be. Triviality has taken over our way of living in the world. That is why the packaging matters more than its content.

3. Virtual reality

Says Galeano: ” The nascent cybercommunity finds refuge in virtual reality, while cities tend to become immense deserts full of people, where each one watches over his saint and is each stuck in his own bubble .”

Here he refers to the great paradox of an overpopulated world, in which there is more and more loneliness. Virtual reality has communicated more easily to us, but it has also strengthened individualism. The concept of real community seems to be fading.

4. Fear

“ Hunger eats fear for breakfast. The fear of silence stuns the streets. Fear threatens. If you love, you will have AIDS. If you smoke, you will get cancer. If you breathe, you will have contamination . If you drink, you will have accidents. If you eat, you will have cholesterol. If you speak, you will have unemployment. If he walks, he will have violence. If you think, you will have anguish. If you doubt, you will be mad. If you feel, you will be lonely ”.

This is one of the best phrases by Eduardo Galeano about how fear has been penetrating all human spaces. It seems that there is always a latent threat in everything we do. They no longer need direct coercion to shape our will, but it is enough to spread those fears and thus they make us live in terror and, therefore, docile.

5. The stuff we are made of

” Scientists say that we are made of atoms, but a little bird told me that we are made of stories . ” Another of Eduardo Galeano’s phrases to oppose the objective data of science to the subjective construction of culture, expressed through a beautiful play on words.

The human being is symbolic par excellence. He is traversed by language since he is born and his life is, fundamentally, a story that is told day by day. Each person is the fruit of the stories with which their early days, their family relationships, their place in society were woven. The least are the atoms that make us up.

Eduardo Galeano was lucid enough to see the world from the heart. His writings build an ethical and political stance, away from ideology and focused on the essence of the human. His wonderful legacy shines with its own light, like a flame that sets many spirits ablaze. He is one of those thinkers who made the word a home and the metaphor a place to go.