"For many decades now the history of industry and commerce has been the history of the revolt of the modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeoisie and of its rule."
--Karl Marx
"It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows."
--Epictetus
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed
corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a
trial of strength and bid
defiance to the laws of our country."
--Thomas Jefferson , 1812
"Es mejor morir a pie que vivir arrodillado"
translates to
"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees."
--José Martí
"Among your people, which want to destroy the world?"
"Which want to destroy it? As far as I know, no one specifically wants to destroy the world."
"And yet you destroy it, each of you. Each of you contributes daily to the destruction of the world."
"Yes, that's so."
"Why don't you stop?"
I shrugged. "Frankly, we don't know how."
"You're captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go destroying the world in order to live."
"Yes, that's the way it seems."
"So. You are captives--and you have made a captive of the world itself. That's what's at stake, isn't it?--your captivity and the captivity of the world."
"Yes, that's so. I've just never thought of it that way."
"And you yourself are captive in a personal way, are you not?"
"How so?"
Ishmael smiled, revealing a great mass of ivory-colored teeth. I hadn't known he could, until then.
I said: " I have an impression of being a captive, but I can't explain why I have this impression."
"A few years ago--you must have been a child at the time, so you may not remember it--many young people of this country had the same impression. They made an ingenious and disorganized effort to escape from captivity but ultimately failed, because they were unable to find the bars of the cage. If you can't discover what's keeping you in, the will to get out soon becomes confused and ineffectual."