History is the only true teacher, the revolution the best school for the proletariat.
Interpretation
History teaches us valuable lessons, and revolutions serve as practical experiences for the working class.
This quote emphasizes the importance of historical context as a source of learning. It suggests that understanding history is crucial for realizing the struggles and achievements of the proletariat, while revolutions provide practical knowledge and experience, making them the most effective educational forums for those fighting for change.
In practice
During a speech on social justice, mentioning this quote can highlight the importance of learning from past struggles.
Our scribblings are usually not lyrics but whirrings, without colour or resonance, like the tone of an engine-wheel. I believe that the cause lies in the fact that when people write, they forget for the most part to dig deeply into themselves and to feel the whole import and truth of what they are writing.
The working classes in every country only learn to fight in the course of their struggles...Social democracy...is only the advance guard of the proletariat, a small piece of the total working masses; blood from their blood, and flesh from their flesh. Social democracy seeks and finds the ways, and particular slogans, of the workers' struggle only in the course of the development of this struggle, and gains directions for the way forward through this struggle alone.
Freedom for supporters of the government only, for members of one party only no matter how big its membership may be is no freedom at all. Freedom is always freedom for the man who thinks differently.
Social democracy seeks and finds the ways, and particular slogans, of the workers' struggle only in the course of the development of this struggle, and gains directions for the way forward through this struggle alone.
The existing legal constitution is nothing but the product of a revolution. Revolution is the act of political creation in the history of classes, while constitutional legislation is the expression of the continual political vegetation of a society.
Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.
We need to have an educational system that's able to embrace all sorts of minds, and where a student doesn't have to fit into a certain mold of learning.
I'm read in the Caribbean with justice, with fairness. What I expect it to do is to encourage articulacy in the young.
From a good book, I want to be taken to the very edge. I want a glimpse into that outer darkness.
My hunch is that if we allow ourselves to give who we really are to the children in our care, we will in some way inspire cartwheels in their hearts.
The Arts and Sciences, essential to the prosperity of the State and to the ornament of human life, have a primary claim to the encouragement of every lover of his country and mankind.
True literacy is becoming an arcane art, and the nation is steadily "dumbing down."
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