We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it.
The vote is a trust more delicate than any other, for it involves not just the interests of the voter, but his life, honor and future as well.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Voting is a significant responsibility that affects not just individual interests but also one's dignity and future.
This quote emphasizes the profound significance of the act of voting. Jose Marti highlights that voting is not merely a right or duty, but a trust that carries immense weight and consequences, as it influences not only the individual's immediate concerns but also their life trajectory, personal honor, and future opportunities. Thus, it reflects the grave responsibility voters bear in choosing representatives and policies that will shape their society.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a rally promoting civic engagement, this quote can inspire attendees to recognize the importance of their votes.
More from Jose Marti
All quotes βLike bones to the human body, the axle to the wheel, the wing to the bird, and the air to the wing, so is liberty the essence of life. Whatever is done without it is imperfect.
Men have no special right because they belong to one race or another: the word man defines all rights.
Other famous men, those of much talk and few deeds, soon evaporate. Action is the dignity of greatness.
Man is a living duty, a depository of powers that he must not leave in a brute state. Man is a wing.
Like stones rolling down hills, fair ideas reach their objectives despite all obstacles and barriers. It may be possible to speed or hinder them, but impossible to stop them.
Similar quotes
Whether it is in the United States or in mainland Europe, written constitutions have one great weakness. That is that they contain the potential to have judges take decisions which should properly be made by democratically elected politicians.
I was turned out because I said to Europe no, no, no. That no, no , no has now turned into yes, yes. Two yes's not three because he got the Social Chapter out and he's reserved his position on the single currency.
In the final analysis it doesn't really matter what the political system is...We don't need perfect political systems; we need perfect participation.
The effort to calculate exactly what the voters want at each particular moment leaves out of account the fact that when they are troubled the thing the voters most want is to be told what to want.
As soon as politicians start climbing up the ladder, they suddenly become kings. I don't know how it works, but what I do know is that republics came to the world to make sure that no one is more than anyone else. The pomp of office is like something left over from a feudal past: "You need a palace, red carpet, a lot of people behind you saying, 'Yes, sir.' I think all of that is awful."
The atrocities in Cambodia are a direct and understandable response to the violence of the imperial system.