no stonecutter more obstinate

"No work could defeat him, no matter how hard or humiliating it was, no salary, no matter how miserable, could demoralize him, and he never lost his essential fearlessness when faced with the insolence of his superiors. But he was not an innocent, either: everyone who crossed his path suffered the consequences of the overwhelming determination, capable of anything, that lay behind his helpless appearance... Florentino Ariza moved through every post during thirty years of dedication and tenacity in the face of every trial. He fulfilled all his duties with admirable skill... Without intending to, without even knowing it, he demonstrated with his life that his father had been right when he repeated until his dying day that there was no one with more common sense, no stonecutter more obstinate, no manager more lucid or dangerous, than a poet."~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera