Quote of the Day by José Saramago, the only Lusophone Nobel laureate in literature: ‘If shame still has any meaning in this hell we’re expected to live…’

What happens when the rules that keep society together suddenly disappear? The question feels like something out of a dystopian movie. Imagine a group of people trapped together, deprived of food, safety and any certainty about tomorrow. At first, they may try to preserve the rules they once lived by. But as hunger grows and fear takes over, those rules can begin to look like luxuries.

That is the disturbing question at the heart of Blindness, the story adapted from José Saramago’s famous novel. Its characters do not simply lose their eyesight; they are forced to confront what happens to morality when survival becomes the most urgent concern.

And somewhere in that darkness, Saramago asks a question that remains painfully familiar in ordinary life: How much does morality matter when doing the right thing comes at a real cost?


Quote of the Day by José Saramago: “If shame still has any meaning in this hell we're expected to live...it is thanks to that person who had the courage to go and kill,... Agreed, but shame won't fill our plates,... You're right in what you say, there have always been those who have filled their bellies because they had no sense of shame.”

The words come from José Saramago’s Blindness, a novel in which an unexplained epidemic leaves almost an entire population unable to see. As society begins to collapse, ordinary ideas of dignity, morality and responsibility are tested against hunger, fear and the instinct to survive.

The passage captures one of his central concerns: what happens to human values when the structures that normally protect them disappear. It remains relevant because people still face versions of the same conflict, although usually on a much smaller scale.

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What the quote is actually suggesting

The exchange presents two uncomfortable truths at the same time. One side argues that shame and conscience still matter. Even in terrible circumstances, there must be some line a person refuses to cross. Without that line, survival can become an excuse for cruelty.

The other side offers a brutally practical response: shame cannot feed a hungry person. That is what makes the passage powerful. The Portuguese writer is not presenting morality as a simple choice between good and evil. He is showing how difficult morality becomes when basic needs are threatened.

Consider someone who has lost everything and is struggling to provide food for a family. Telling that person to simply “do the right thing” can sound very different from telling someone living comfortably to do the same.

The same conflict appears in everyday life.

A person may know they should not lie at work, but fear losing their job. Someone may know they should speak up when a colleague is being mistreated, but worry about becoming the next target. A struggling family may make compromises that they would never have considered under better circumstances.

Saramago's point is not that desperation makes wrongdoing acceptable. It is circumstances that can make moral choices painfully complicated.

There is another, darker observation buried in the passage. People without shame can sometimes gain an advantage over people who still have a conscience.

A person willing to exploit others may accumulate more money. The person willing to manipulate may rise faster. The person who feels no guilt after doing something unpardonable may appear stronger because they are not carrying the emotional restrictions that hold others back.

That does not make them morally right. It simply means that conscience can sometimes feel like a burden in a world where others are willing to abandon theirs.

And that is precisely why Saramago's idea is uncomfortable: civilization depends not only on laws, but also on people choosing not to do certain things even when they could get away with them.

José Saramago: The thinker behind the idea

José Saramago was born on November 16, 1922, in Azinhaga, Portugal. His path to becoming one of the world's most celebrated writers was far from straightforward. He did not become a full-time author until his fifties. Before that, he worked as a car mechanic and journalist, among other occupations. Writing was, therefore, not a comfortable early-life profession for him. His literary career developed gradually, after years spent working outside the world of books.

His international breakthrough came with Baltasar and Blimunda, published in 1982.

Saramago later became known for novels that combined imagination with sharp observations about society. His writing often used allegory, allowing impossible or fantastical situations to expose very real human behavior.

His most successful works included Blindness, published in 1995. In the novel, an epidemic of blindness spreads through a population and rapidly destroys the structures that people had taken for granted.

The book became a powerful examination of fear, power, cruelty, compassion and social collapse.

Saramago was also an atheist and was politically involved in Portugal's Communist Party. His political views and literary work often provoked controversy in his native country. Later in life, he settled on Lanzarote, where he continued writing.

He is also the only Portuguese-language (Lusophone) writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, receiving the honor in 1998. He died on June 18, 2010, in Lanzarote, Spain, aged 87.

José Saramago’s thinking style and philosophy behind the quote

Saramago rarely approached society by simply telling readers what was right or wrong. Instead, he created extreme situations and allowed human beings to reveal themselves.

That approach is particularly clear in Blindness. The epidemic is fictional, but the behavior it produces is recognizably human. Remove certainty. Remove authority. Remove security. Then watch what happens.

That is where the quote gets its force. Saramago understood that human beings are capable of compassion, but also capable of extraordinary cruelty when fear and scarcity take control. His characters are repeatedly placed in situations where abstract moral principles collide with physical needs irresistible at times.

The discussion about shame and food, therefore, becomes more than a conversation between characters. It becomes a question about civilization itself.

What keeps a person decent when there is no reward for being decent? And perhaps even more importantly: What happens when the people willing to abandon their principles begin to benefit from doing so?

Saramago's answer is not sentimental. He recognizes that morality can be difficult, costly and even dangerous. Yet his work repeatedly returns to the idea that our humanity is measured precisely by what we refuse to become when circumstances encourage us to become something worse.

Why his idea still matters today

Modern life rarely resembles the extreme world of Blindness. Most people are not fighting over food in a collapsed society. But the underlying conflict is everywhere.

At work, someone may discover that dishonesty is being rewarded while honesty creates problems. In relationships, a person may be tempted to hurt someone because they were hurt first, or simply because it seems rewarding in the moment. In competition, cutting corners can sometimes appear easier than maintaining integrity.

Even social media can create a version of the same problem. Outrage often attracts more attention than restraint. Cruel comments can spread faster than thoughtful ones. People can gain visibility by saying things they might never say face-to-face.

That makes Saramago's idea particularly relevant. A person's character is not tested only when doing the right thing is easy. It is tested when doing the right thing costs something.

Sometimes that cost is money. Sometimes it is popularity. Sometimes it is a career opportunity. Sometimes it is the satisfaction of getting revenge.

And sometimes it is simply about accepting that another person may behave badly without letting their behavior decide who you become.

Saramago's passage ultimately leaves us with an uncomfortable but important distinction: understanding why people abandon morality is not the same as excusing them for doing so.

Survival matters. Hunger matters. Fear matters. Circumstances matter. But so does shame.

Because once a society loses the ability to feel shame about cruelty, exploitation and indifference, the danger is not merely that people will break the rules. The danger is that they will eventually stop believing that there was anything wrong with breaking them in the first place.