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Eugenio María de Hostos

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Eugenio María de Hostos y de Bonilla (born January 11, 1839 in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico; died August 11, 1903 in Santo Domingo) was an educator, philosopher, intellectual, lawyer, sociologist, novelist, and advocate for Puerto Rican independence.

Quotes

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  • To be worthy of the affection shown to me, my gratitude must not be spoken, nor even felt. It must be lived
  • the logical purpose of our life is, as it should be, to form a confederation of insular peoples who will help the continental peoples of our Western hemisphere to complete civilization, extend it and make it sound: to complete civilization by giving the Latin branch of America the legal strength the Anglo-American branch has, to extend it by carrying it East, to make it sound by filling it with the youthful breath of new societies.
  • Outraged at having so many reasons to scorn so many people, I tell the naked truth. Perhaps it is the best policy for men and times like these.
  • When will we leave the decency and self-denial and disinterest in fortune and life, of which we have given more proof than has been demanded of us? When will we have better occasion to die as good men and triumph as dignified men? When will we leave this dismal solitude that weakens us and in which we deeply harm ourselves by not doing all the good that we can for our country?
  • The day I descend to favoritism, and do myself the injustice of supporting personal interests, I will have put my patriotism at the level of people, and the average height of five feet is too short for my ideas.
  • My conscience tells me that my life’s greatest desire, the absolute independence of the Antilles-so very possible because of the geographical and economic conditions of these societies-would be a difficult task for the generation destined to conquer it, which has already heroically begun to conquer it, if this generation is not cured in time of two vices with which despotism has infected our people. From the first vice, an inevitable product of the pathetic principle of authority that smothered our human dignity in addition to our liberty, comes a false idea of liberty. The second vice, a cursed creation of autocratic government, produces the habit of entrusting others with what we should do for ourselves. The first breeds anarchy; the second begets dictators; they complement each other, and wherever systematic hatred for authority produces anarchy, the people have an idol that enslaves them; and wherever there is political idolatry, there is a latent or patent state of anarchy. A society that suffers these evils is not free. And if I want the absolute independence of the Antilles, it is because I want to prove to our slanderers that the Antilles can be free.
  • A life devoted to good things has authority everywhere.
  • The more I love the cause I represent, the more I wish its enemies worthy of it, and far from finding an argument against justice, I discover an argument in favor of it, when the same people who acknowledge justice combat it out of interest, weakness, worry, or error fight it. There may be a noble sacrifice in defending an unjust cause: there isn’t a noble man who fails to condemn injustice.

Letter to the Editor, La Correspondencia de Puerto Rico (October 1900)

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  • No longer does patriotism alone oblige us to defend our country against whomever might jeopardize her, but conscience also orders us to do what is good, and currently the only good thing in Puerto Rico is the cause defended by the League of Patriots. Nothing else is good: The North Americans’ work is evil, the Puerto Ricans’ work is evil. The North Americans; Impassively watching the Puerto Ricans die and kill each other, dying of hunger and killing out of envy…
  • I do not believe brute force worthy of admiration whether I see it in everyday history or it is presented to me adorned, adulated, and admired in past history; however, I do believe worthy of greater attention and concern the obvious fact that the North Americans sent to Puerto Rico and the North Americans of the government that sends them are proceeding in Puerto Rico like a brute force. In which direction is that brute force headed? In the direction of extermination. It is not nor can it be a confessed intention, but it is an unconfessed belief held by the barbarians who attempt to popularize conquest and imperialism from the Executive Branch of the United States, that to absorb Puerto Rico they must exterminate her; and naturally, they see hunger and envy exterminating Puerto Ricans as a fact that concurs with their design, and they cold-heartedly allow it to happen.
  • Instead of a plan for government which would have Americanized Borinquen - insofar as Americanism is good - and which would have prepared her to effectively exercise her independence in everyday life with the other peoples of the Earth, McKinley and his partisans, who do not look beyond keeping the Republican Party in power, saw nothing in Puerto Rico but a field for exploitation they believed to be opening up to the avarice of their supporters or to the vain glory of the American masses. Is that good?

Quotes about

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  • Eugenio María de Hostos was a patriot, and also a symbol of the moral meaning of our homeland. Its most prominent virtues were incarnate in him, and in bringing them together he enriched them with his spiritual action and illuminated them with purer shades of light. Like a cutter, he knew how to cut the diamond's facets in order to achieve the greatest luminosity. The sentiment of the homeland was always the basis on which his acts were founded, acts that are, truly, love along with good reasons. In order to serve the homeland he formed himself in a severe discipline of science and conscience. And he devoted himself completely to the work of the moral expansion of Puerto Rico. This man, and so much a man, so conscious of human dignity, a man as strong as one of our ceibas, silk-cotton trees, as firm and passionate as the tropical winds, knew that the homeland, like men, can only be fulfilled in the tonic air of liberty. He lived and suffered calvary for the liberty of Puerto Rico. In no moment a vile consideration, a weakness of the flesh, a temptation of power and glory, separated him from his goal or weakened the intensity of his desires. On many occasions he went far from the homeland because they put obstacles before his actions or because he considered that he could carry them out more efficiently from afar. When he returned from forced or self-exile, faith in the reason of his yearning shone and cut like a sword. Constant sacrifice and self-abnegation lend austerity and genuine nobility to his moral figure. The name of Hostos is an emotion; it has the magic of shaking our spirit to its roots; his thought in constant creative acts, his deeds burning and clean as a mirror, his love for others, and his confidence in spiritual values constitute a valuable heritage for us Puerto Ricans. Let Hostos be an example and mentor for university youth. The homeland was never so in need of the love of its sons, never were its virtues and its dignity more sullied. Let this youth rush to prompt remedy; let it imitate Hostos; let it devote itself like him to an impassioned labor; let it save Puerto Rico with deeds, without wasting itself on empty words; let it love liberty and exercise it with the dignity proper of men. Then and only then will it be worthy of pronouncing, without besmirching it, the prominent name of Eugenio María de Hostos.
    • Margot Arce de Vázquez, "Hostos, Exemplary Patriot," English language translation included in Borinquen: an Anthology of Puerto Rican Literature by María Teresa Babín (1974)
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