We light the oven so that everyone may bake bread in it.
If I survive, I will spend my whole life at the oven door seeing that no one is denied bread and, so as to give a lesson of charity, especially those who did not bring flour.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses a commitment to ensuring that everyone has access to basic necessities, emphasizing charity towards those in need.
In this quote, José Martí reflects on the moral responsibility one has to help others, particularly the less fortunate. He suggests that survival should inspire a lifetime dedication to ensuring that every person, regardless of their contributions, has access to essential resources like bread, highlighting the importance of charity and compassion in society. The act of providing for those who might have less is portrayed as not only a necessity but a lesson for others on the values of generosity and support.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a charity event, I shared this quote to inspire others to contribute.
More from Jose Marti
All quotes →Like 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.
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The haunting of history is ever present in Barcelona. I see cities as organisms, as living creatures. To me, Madrid is a man and Barcelona is a woman. And it's a woman who's extremely vain.
It has been hard to muster the resources to support fledgling democracies and to intervene on behalf of the most desperate. The AIDS orphans in Uganda, the refugee fleeing Zimbabwe, the young woman who has been trafficked into the sex trade in Southeast Asia. It has been hard, yet this assistance together with the compassionate work of private charities, people of conscience and people of faith, has shown the soul of our country.
It might be liberating to think of human life as informed by losses and disappearances as much as by gifted appearances, allowing a more present participation and witness to the difficulty of living.
One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it-- it was the black kitten's fault entirely.