Bolivar Quotes

It's not life or death, the labyrinth. Suffering. Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?

After all this time, it seems to me like straight and fast is the only way out- but I choose the labyrinth. The labyrinth blows, but I choose it.

He was gone, and I did not have time to tell him what I had just now realized: that I forgave him, and that she forgave us, and that we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth. There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can’t know better until knowing better is useless. And as I walked back to give Takumi’s note to the Colonel, I saw that I would never know. I would never know her well enough to know her thoughts in those last minutes, would never know if she left us on purpose. But the not-knowing would not keep me from caring, and I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart.

She said, "It's not life or death, the labyrinth." "Um, okay. So what is it?" "Suffering," she said. "Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?... Nothing's wrong. But there's always suffering, Pudge. Homework or malaria or having a boyfriend who lives far away when there's a good-looking boy lying next to you. Suffering is universal. It's the one thing Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims are all worried about.

He—that's Simon Bolivar—was shaken by the overwhelming revelation that the headlong race between his misfortunes and his dreams was at that moment reaching the finish line. The rest was darkness. Damn it," he sighed. "'How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!' "So what's the labyrinth?" I asked her. "That's the mystery, isn't it? Is the labyrinth living or dying? Which is he trying to escape—the world or the end of it?

Damn it! How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?

How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?

How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!" In reality, "How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!" were probably not Simon Bolivar's last words (although he did, historically, say them). His last words may have been "Jose! Bring the luggage. They do not want us here." The significant source for "How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!" is also Alaska's source, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's The General in his Labyrinth.

The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.

It's not about life or death, the labyrinth." "So what is it?" "Suffering." she said. "Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?

The first duty of a government is to give education to the people

Not since North Korean media declared Kim Jong-il to be the reincarnation of Kim Il Sung has there been such a blatant attempt to create a necrocracy, or perhaps mausolocracy, in which a living claimant assumes the fleshly mantle of the departed.

Damn it," he sighed. "How will I ever get out of this Labyrinth!

When asked whether or not we are Marxists, our position is the same as that of a physicist, when asked if he is a “Newtonian” or of a biologist when asked if he is a “Pasteurian.” There are truths so evident, so much a part of the peoples’ knowledge, that it is now useless to debate them. One should be a “Marxist” with the same naturalness with which one is a “Newtonian” in physics or a “Pasteurian.” If new facts bring about new concepts, the latter will never take away that portion of truth possessed by those that have come before. Such is the case, for example, of “Einsteinian” relativity or of Planck’s quantum theory in relation to Newton’s discoveries. They take absolutely nothing away from the greatness of the learned Englishman. Thanks to Newton, physics was able to advance until it achieved new concepts of space. The learned Englishman was the necessary stepping-stone for that. Obviously, one can point to certain mistakes of Marx, as a thinker and as an investigator of the social doctrines and of the capitalist system in which he lived. We Latin Americans, for example, cannot agree with his interpretation of Bolivar, or with his and Engels’ analysis of the Mexicans, which accepted as fact certain theories of race or nationality that are unacceptable today. But the great men who discover brilliant truths live on despite their small faults and these faults serve only to show us they were human. That is to say, they were human beings who could make mistakes, even given the high level of consciousness achieved by these giants of human thought. This is why we recognize the essential truths of Marxism as part of humanity’s body of cultural and scientific knowledge. We accept it with the naturalness of something that requires no further argument.

I'm old, sick, tired, disillusioned, harassed, slandered, and unappreciated.

All who have served the Revolution have plowed the sea.

Antonia José Bolivar préférait ne plus penser, laissant béantes les profondeurs de sa mémoire pour les remplir de bonheur et de tourments d'amour plus éternels que le temps.

How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!

Even before his eyes began to fail he had his secretaries read to him, and then he read no other way because of the annoyance that eyeglasses caused him. But his interest in what he read was decreasing at the same time, and as always he attributed this to a cause beyond his control. "The fact is there are fewer and fewer good books," he would say.

Antonio José Bolivar ôta son dentier, le rangea dans son mouchoir et sans cesser de maudire le gringo, responsable de la tragédie, le maire, les chercheurs d'or, tous ceux qui souillaient la virginité de son Amazonie, il coupa une grosse branche d'un coup de machette, s'y appuya, et prit la direction d'El Idilio, de sa cabane et ses romans qui parlaient d'amour avec des mots si beaux que, parfois, ils lui faisaient oublier la barbarie des hommes.

Não é vida ou morte... o labirinto. - Hum. Está bem. Então o que é? - Sofrimento - disse ela - Errar, e coisas erradas acontecerem com você. Esse é o problema. Bolivar estava falando da dor, não de viver ou morrer. Como escapar do labirinto do sofrimento?

Il ne s'agit pas de sacrifier pour sauver un seul homme. D'un océan à l'autre, de Guayaquil à Caracas, de Panama à Cuzco, tout le Venezuela attend de Bolivar sa libération! Tout un monde qui souffre sous la domination la plus cruelle, la plus féroce, la plus abjecte

I forgot to say—a merely curious detail—that in one of the first chapters of Sartor Resartus, when speaking about garments, Carlyle says that the simplest garment he knows of was used by the cavalry of Bolivar in the South American war. And here we have a description of the poncho as “a blanket with a hole in the middle,” under which he imagines Bolivar’s cavalry soldier, he imagines him—simplifying it a bit—“mother naked,” as naked as when he came out of his mother’s belly, covered by the poncho, with only his sword and his spear.”25

It's not life or death, the labyrinth.'' ''Um, OK. So what is it?'' ''Suffering,'' she said. ''Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?

Simon BolIvar is often called "the George Washington of South America" because of his role in the liberation of five South American countries (Colombia, Venezula, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia) from Spanish rule. Few, if 'any, political figures have played so dominant a role in the history of an entire continent as he did.

How Will I ever Get out of this Labyrinth?!

Si una palabra sola puede cambiar el curso de la historia, otra palabra, en la oscuridad, derrota la tormenta.

Soy preso de una batalla interior entre el deber y el amor; entre tu honor y la deshonra, por ser culpable de amor. Separarnos es lo que indica la cordura y la templanza, en justicia ¡Odio obedecer estas virtudes!

It's not life or death, the labyrinth.” “Urn, okay. So what is it?” “Suffering,” she said. “Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?” “What's wrong?” I asked. And I felt the absence of her hand on me. “Nothing's wrong. But there's always suffering, Pudge. Homework or malaria or having a boyfriend who lives far away when there's a good-looking boy lying next to you. Suffering is universal. It's the one thing Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims are all worried about.

Así opinaba el "Libertador" sobre Quito: "...hombres tan malvados e ingratos. Yo creo que le he dicho a Vd., antes de ahora, que los quiteños son los peores colombianos. El hecho es que siempre lo he pensado, y que se necesita un rigor triple que el que se emplearía en otra parte. Los venezolanos son unos santos en comparación de esos malvados. Los quiteños y los peruanos son la misma cosa: viciosos hasta la infamia y bajos hasta el extremo. Los blancos tienen el carácter de los indios, y los indios son todos truchimanes, todos ladrones, todos embusteros, todos falsos, sin ningún principio de moral que los guíe." Bolívar a Santander, Pativilca, 7 de enero de 1824

¿Quiere usted la separación por su propia determinación, o por los auspicios de lo que usted llama honor? La eternidad que nos separa sólo es la ceguera de su determinación de usted, que no lo ve más. Arránquese usted si quiere, su corazón de usted, pero el mío ¡no! Lo tengo vivo para usted, que sí lo es para mí toda mi adoración, por encima de los prejuicios.

America is ungovernable; 2. he who serves a revolution ploughs the sea; 3. all one can do in America is leave it; 4. the country is bound to fall into unimaginable chaos, after which it will pass into the hands of an undistinguishable string of tyrants of every color; 5. once we are devoured by all manner of crime and reduced to a frenzy of violence, no one—not even the Europeans—will want to subjugate us; 6. and, finally, if mankind could revert to its primitive state, it would be here in America, in her final hour. He

Nessun limite a Parigi. Nessuna città ha avuto questa dominazione che dileggiava talvolta coloro ch'essa soggioga: Piacervi o ateniesi! esclamava Alessandro. Parigi fa più che la legge, fa la moda; e più che la moda, l'abitudine. Se le piace, può esser stupida, e talvolta si concede questo lusso, allora l'universo è stupido con lei. Poi Parigi si sveglia, si frega gli occhi e dice: «Come sono sciocca!» e sbotta a ridere in faccia al genere umano. Quale meraviglia, una simile città! Quanto è strano che questo grandioso e questo burlesco si faccian buona compagnia, che tutta questa maestà non sia turbata da tutta questa parodia e che la stessa bocca possa oggi soffiare nella tromba del giudizio finale e domani nello zufolo campestre! Parigi ha una giocondità suprema: la sua allegrezza folgora e la sua farsa regge uno scettro. Il suo uragano esce talvolta da una smorfia; le sue esplosioni, le sue giornate, i suoi capolavori, i suoi prodigi e le sue epopee giungono fino in capo al mondo, e i suoi spropositi anche. La sua risata è una bocca di vulcano che inzacchera tutta la terra, i suoi lazzi sono faville; essa impone ai popoli le sue caricature, così come il suo ideale, ed i più alti monumenti della civiltà umana ne accettano le ironie e prestano la loro eternità alle sue monellerie. È superba: ha un 14 luglio prodigioso, che libera l'universo; fa fare il giuramento della palla corda a tutte le nazioni; la sua notte del 4 agosto dissolve in tre ore mille anni di feudalismo; fa della sua logica il muscolo della volontà unanime; si moltiplica sotto tutte le forme del sublime; riempie del suo bagliore Washington, Kosciusko, Bolivar, Botzaris, Riego, Bem, Manin, Lopez, John Brown, Garibaldi; è dappertutto dove s'accende l'avvenire, a Boston nel 1779, all'isola di Leon nel 1820, a Budapest nel 1848, a Palermo nel 1860; sussurra la possente parola d'ordine: Libertà, all'orecchio degli abolizionisti americani radunati al traghetto di Harper's Ferry ed all'orecchio dei patrioti d'Ancona, riuniti nell'ombra degli Archi, davanti all'albergo Gozzi, in riva al mare; crea Canaris, Quiroga, Pisacane; irraggia la grandezza sulla terra; e Byron muore a Missolungi e Mazet muore a Barcellona, andando là dove il suo alito li spinge; è tribuna sotto i piedi di Mirabeau, cratere sotto i piedi di Robespierre; i suoi libri, il suo teatro, la sua arte, la sua scienza, la sua letteratura, la sua filosofia sono i manuali del genere umano; vi sono Pascal, Régnier, Corneille, Descartes, Gian Giacomo; Voltaire per tutti i minuti, Molière per tutti i secoli; fa parlar la sua lingua alla bocca universale e questa lingua diventa il Verbo; costruisce in tutte le menti l'idea del progresso; i dogmi liberatori da lei formulati sono per le generazioni altrettanti cavalli di battaglia, e appunto coll'anima dei suoi pensatori e dei suoi poeti si sono fatti dal 1789 in poi gli eroi di tutti i popoli. Il che non le impedisce d'esser birichina; e quel genio enorme che si chiama Parigi, mentre trasfigura il mondo colla sua luce, disegna col carboncino il naso di Bourginier sul muro del tempio di Teseo e scrive Crédeville, ladro, sulle piramidi. Parigi mostra sempre i denti; quando non brontola, ride. Siffatta è questa Parigi. I fumacchi dei suoi tetti sono le idee dell'universo. Mucchio di fango e di pietre, se si vuole; ma, soprattutto, essere morale: è più che grande, è immensa. Perché? Perché osa. Osare: il più progresso si ottiene a questo prezzo. Tutte le conquiste sublimi sono, più o meno, premî al coraggio, perché la rivoluzione sia, non basta che Montesquieu la presagisca, che Diderot la predichi, che Beaumarchais l'annunci, che Condorcet la calcoli, che Arouet la prepari e che Rousseau la premediti: bisogna che Danton l'osi.

José Martí, born on January 28, 1853, is known as the George Washington of Cuba, or is perhaps better identified with Simon Bolivar, the liberator of South America. Although he admired and visited the United States, José Martí realized that not only would he have to free his country from Spain, he would also have to prevent the United States from interfering in Cuba’s internal affairs. By his admirers, he was considered a great Latin American intellectual, and his newspaper Patria became the voice of “Cuban Independence.” After years of suppression, the Cuban struggle for independence began in 1868. At the age of 17, José Martí was jailed in Cuba and then exiled to Spain because of his revolutionary activities. It was during this time in his life that he published a pamphlet describing the atrocities he had experienced while being imprisoned in Cuba. He strongly believed in racial equality and denounced the horrors of people having to live under a dictatorship. In 1878, Martí was allowed to return to Cuba under a general amnesty, but was once again banished from Cuba after being accused of conspiracy against the Spanish authorities. From 1881 to 1895, he lived and worked in New York City. Moving to Florida, he organized forces for a three-pronged attack supporting the smoldering Cuban War of Independence. It was during one of the first battles that he was killed at the Battle of Dos Ríos in Cuba, and thus became a national hero and martyr when he was only 42 years old.

Now that the scaffolding had been removed from the Bolivar County courthouse, Brewer could see where five giant slabs of limestone formed gleaming steps that sprawled nearly the entire front facade of the building. Recently renovated in polished granite and sandstone, Rosedale’s courthouse was untouched by the grit of the town that was designed around it. At right angles to the limestone stairs were twin cement blocks. Each served as the base for a shining white column, which supported an ornate cornice that circled the roof. Carrying five recently typed pages,

One quiet, star-lit summer night, while on picket between Bolivar and Toone's, I had the good fortune to witness the flight of the largest and most brilliant meteor I ever have seen. It was a little after midnight, and I was standing alone at my post, looking, listening, and thinking. Suddenly there came a loud, rushing, roaring sound, like a passenger train close by, going at full speed, and there in the west was a meteor! Its flight was from the southwest to the northeast, parallel with the horizon, and low down. Its head, or body, looked like a huge ball of fire, and it left behind a long, immense tail of brilliant white, that lighted up all the western heavens. While yet in full view, it exploded with a crash like a near-by clap of thunder, there was a wide, glittering shower of sparks,—and then silence and darkness. The length of time it was visible could not have been more than a few seconds, but it was a most extraordinary spectacle.

Ils (les maîtres du monde) nous dominent plus par l’ignorance que par la force

I don’t want to be like trees that put down roots in one place,” he wrote. “I’d rather be like the wind, the water, the sun—like all those things that are forever in perpetual motion.

Of all the towns of the department of Bolivar, Cartegena is the most picturesque. Not only is it the most old-world town of the department, but of the whole Republic and perhaps of the whole continent of South America... [it] was once the place of meeting of the great Plate fleet, that took the silver gathered together from all the mines of the New World, across the sea to Spain. Many a time the British and French corsairs hung off and on, just out of sight of land, to attack with varying degrees of success.

Don't attempt to teach us how we should be, don't attempt to make us just like you, don't try to have us do well in twenty years what you have done so badly in two thousand.

They're nothing but dead men making trouble.

I despise debt more than I do the Spanish

We’ve met,” Bolivar said tersely. “Board meeting not long ago. Almost got me fired for teaching mythology. Thank the gods, his tentacles don’t reach far enough—yet. Joe Campbell and I, scourges of the Christian world.

José Martí is recognized as the George Washington of Cuba or perhaps better yet, as Simon Bolivar, the liberator of South America. He was born in Havana on January 28, 1853, to Spanish parents. His mother, Leonor Pérez Cabrera, was a native of the Canary Islands and his father, Mariano Martí Navarro, came from Valencia. Families were big then, and it was not long before José had seven sisters. While still very young his parents took him to Spain, but it was just two years later that they returned to Santa Clara where his father worked as a prison guard. His parents enrolled José at a local public school. In September of 1867, Martí signed up at the Escuela Profesional de Pintura y Escultura de La Habana, an art school for painting and sculpture in Havana." Read more about José Martí in the “Exciting Story of Cuba” by award winning author Captain Hank Bracker. This book is available at Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com or Independent Book stores everywhere.

Bolívar celebró, junto a la mayoría de independistas latinoamericanos, la política de Monroe y de John Quincy Adams, como una salvaguarda contra el peligro de nuevas intervenciones europeas en las Américas

I am ashamed to admit it, but independence is the only thing we have won, at the cost of everything else.

If any one man were indispensable to a state’s survival, that state should not and will not exist. . .

Count Aranda, an advisor to the Spanish throne, who—long before, in the year of Bolívar’s birth—had said of the United States, “There will come a time when she is a giant, a colossus even, much to be feared in those vast regions. Then, she will forget the benefits she received from others and think only of aggrandizing herself.

Nigger—as if the black blood rumored to course in his veins explained all his harebrained ideals about equality.

All murderers shall be punished, unless of course they kill in large numbers, to the sound of trumpets. —Voltaire

The art of victory is learned in failures. —Simón Bolívar

Bolivar was born in 1783, in Caracas, Venezuela, into an aristocratic family of Spanish descent.

By the late eighteenth century, such seditious ideas, challenging authority, were commonplace in schools, universities and in upper-class salons, but they were still a long way from active revolt.

Reigart B. Lowry was a career naval officer who spent 40 years in the US Navy. He played an active role in many of the major operations of the Navy from 1840 to 1880. He graduated from the first class at Annapolis, fought in the Mexican War, went to Japan with Commodore Perry, and was in a ship off of Fort Sumter when the first shots of the Civil War were fired. He played an active role in many of the important naval operations of the Civil War. After the Civil War, military operations lessened, government corruption increased, and politicians tried to gain more influence in the Navy. Reigart Lowry fought against these influences, and in his last year, he led the fight against a fellow naval officer who was trying to take advantage of this atmosphere.

Reigart claimed that alcohol was necessary to ease the pain of his various ailments. His health was failing him. He really was in pain, but, of course, alcohol aggravated rather than cured his diseases. He suffered from rheumatism, diabetes, and gout. If one of these diseases was not bothering him, another one was.

Vive América, Bolívar, y también vive tu espada mientras haya un solo esclavo que te ultraje o un tirano que pretenda profanar la libertad. Bolívar, America Lives! and your sword also lives so long as a single slave rapes your ideal or a tyrant tries to profane liberty. (From A Simon Bolívar / To Simon Bolívar)

774–781. Caravela Coffee importers for Joe Coffee, who deal with customs and logistics, including Badi Bradley, Anthony Auger, Christy Wicker, Matt Kolb, James Gibbs, Daniel Bolivar, Lorena Falla, and Alejandro Cadena.

El mundo de la psicología transpersonal siempre ha sido un misterio para la psicología actual, debido principalmente a que la psicología actual  se basa  en el método  científico que establece la medición, observación  y cuantificación de hipótesis. La psicología transpersonal tiene que ver con ese mundo no material en el que los pasos anteriormente mencionados no tiene participación o no resultan posibles.  La experiencia de vida en este mundo de tercera dimensión, consiste realmente en traspasar el mundo físico al mundo no físico, la física cuántica. Es en realidad trabajar en la psicología real, el estudio del alma.

Al respecto, quiero citar el hermoso poema del poeta, filósofo y escritor libanes Khalil Gibran: Tus hijos no son tus hijos, son hijos e hijas de la vida, deseosa de sí misma. No vienen de ti, sino a través de ti, y aunque estén contigo, no te pertenecen. Puedes darles tu amor, pero no tus pensamientos, pues ellos tienen sus propios pensamientos. Puedes abrigar sus cuerpos, pero no sus almas, porque ellos viven en la casa del mañana, que no puedes visitar, ni siquiera en sueños. Puedes esforzarte en ser como ellos, pero no procures hacerles semejantes a ti, porque la vida no retrocede ni se detiene en el ayer. Tú eres el arco del cual tus hijos, como flechas vivas, son lanzados. Deja que la inclinación, en tu mano de arquero, sea para la felicidad.

Había sido joven hasta hacía poco tiempo, cuando sus carnes empezaron a ganarle a su edad.

«A Wilson le falta pasar algún tiempo en la escuela de las dificultades, y aun de la adversidad y la miseria.»

48 , , SIMON BOLIVAR 1783-1830

The revolution against Spanish rule in Venezuela commenced in 1810, when the Spanish governor of Venezuela was deposed. A formal declaration of independence was made in 1811, and that same year BolIvar became an officer in the revolutionary army.

The turning point came in 1819, when Bolivar led his small, ragtag army across rivers, plains, and the high passes of the Andes in order to attack the Spanish troops in Colombia. There he won the crucial Battle of Boyaca (August 7, 1819), the true turning point of the struggle. Venezuela was liberated in 1821, and Ecuador in 1822.

By 1824, Bolivar's armies had completed the liberation of what is now Peru, and in 1825, the Spanish troops in Upper Peru (present-day Bolivia) were routed.

The simple obituary of J. W. Milam that appeared in 1980 escaped media attention. Roy Bryant’s death, which came in 1994, would have gone unnoticed as well had it not been for the astute eye of journalist Bill Minor. Minor published a piece that noted Bryant’s role in the Till case soon after the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and Bryant’s local paper, the Bolivar Commercial, each ran short, standard obituaries.117

I never knew what racial prejudice was until I got to Florida. Instead of being prejudiced, we were proud of our black population….[José] Martí, our Simon Bolivar, and perhaps the most brilliant Cuban ever, wrote: “Man has no special rights because he belongs to a particular race. The soul emanates equal and eternal from bodies different in shape and color. It is sufficient to say ‘Man’ to comprehend therein all rights.” ~ from A Book by Desi Arnaz

For example, the Defender source noted that the cotton gin where the men got the fan was called the Progressive Ginning Company, located nearly three and a half miles from the town of Cleveland, in Bolivar County. Huie named

Outside Caracas patriots hardly fared better. The “Legions of Hell”—hordes of wild and truculent plainsmen—rode out of the barren llanos to punish anyone who dared call himself a rebel. Leading these colored troops was the fearsome José Tomás Boves. A Spanish sailor from Asturias, Boves had been arested at sea for smuggling, sent to the dungeons of Puerto Cabello, then exiled to the Venezuelan prairie, where he fell in with marauding cowboys. He was fair-haired, strong-shouldered, with an enormous head, piercing blue eyes, and a pronounced sadistic streak. Loved by his feral cohort with a passion verging on worship, he led them to unimaginable violence. As Bolívar’s aide Daniel O’Leary later wrote, “Of all the monsters produced by the revolution . . . Boves was the worst.” He was a barbarian of epic proportions, an Attila for the Americas. Recruited by Monteverde but beholden to no one, Boves raised a formidable army of black, pardo, and mestizo llaneros by promising them open plunder, rich booty, and a chance to exterminate the Creole class. The llaneros were accomplished horsemen, well trained in the art of warfare. They needed few worldly goods, rode bareback, covered their nakedness with loincloths. They consumed only meat, which they strapped to their horses’ flanks and cured by the sweat of the racing animals. They made tents from hides, slept on earth, reveled in hardship. They lived on the open prairie, which was parched by heat, impassable in the rains. Their weapon of choice was a long lance of alvarico palm, hardened to a sharp point in the campfire. They were accustomed to making rapid raids, swimming on horseback through rampant floods, the sum of their earthly possessions in leather pouches balanced on their heads or clenched between their teeth. They could ride at a gallop, like the armies of Genghis Khan, dangling from the side of a horse, so that their bodies were rendered invisible, untouchable, their killing lances straight and sure against a baffled enemy. In war, they had little to lose or gain, no allegiance to politics. They were rustlers and hated the ruling class, which to them meant the Creoles; they fought for the abolition of laws against their kind, which the Spaniards had promised; and they believed in the principles of harsh justice, in which a calculus of bloodshed prevailed.

I think that a man who has never spent some wakeful hours in the night, by himself, out in the woods, has simply missed one of the most interesting parts of life. The night is the time when most of the wild things are astir, and some of the tame ones, too. There was some kind of a very small frog in the swamps and marshes near Bolivar that gave forth about the most plaintive little cry that I ever heard.

Bolívar was one of the shapers of the modern world, leading his ragged band of followers to take on what was then the longest enduring empire, that of Spain, which disposed of some 36,000 troops and 44,000 seamen to preserve an entire continent in its iron grip. He liberated no fewer than six modern countries from the Spanish stranglehold – Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Panama – in a series of astonishing marches that led his army across Amazonian rainforests, sodden marshes, dizzying mountains, parched outbacks and prosperous highlands to exceed the achievements of the conquistadors, Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro (because the Spanish empire was so much better armed than the Aztecs and the Incas).

In his continent-spanning achievement his record perhaps even exceeded those of Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Clive of India and Napoleon.

A further feature that distinguished the experiences of South and North America was the absence of a racialist prohibition on intermarriage and interbreeding, which prevailed particularly in the slave states of the southern British colonies. In part this was because very few white women travelled across from Spain to Latin America; and in part because the Spanish did not suffer from the same type of racism and puritanism as northern European Protestantism.

Latin America evolved as a collection of imperial viceroyalties and subdivisions, established and maintained by an overseas empire. For 300 years an often impenetrable geography of mountains, deserts, jungles and huge distances divided these units of empire, ensuring their evolution into different city-based states united by culture but each with their own particular history, racial mix and different interests.

The old Spanish revolutionary slogan, ‘un pueblo unido jamás será vencido’ (‘a people, united, will never be defeated’) applies less to the divided countries of the continent than to almost any other.

Simón Bolívar was born on 24 January 1783 to an enormously wealthy and distinguished Venezuelan family that had aristocratic roots in the mountainous and windswept region of Vizcaya (Biscay) in northern Spain.

Juan Vicente did not marry until the age of 46 when he chose María Concepcion Palacios y Blanco, the beautiful 15-year-old daughter of another prominent family.

Coloring outside the lines is also art.

José Martí is recognized as the George Washington of Cuba or perhaps better yet, as the Simon Bolivar, the liberator of South America. He was born in Havana on January 28, 1853, to Spanish parents. His mother, Leonor Pérez Cabrera, was a native of the Canary Islands and his father, Mariano Martí Navarro, came from Valencia. Families were big then, and it was not long before José had seven sisters. While still very young his parents took him to Spain, but it was just two years later that they returned to Santa Clara where his father worked as a prison guard. His parents enrolled José at a local public school. In September of 1867, Martí signed up at the Escuela Profesional de Pintura y Escultura de La Habana, an art school for painting and sculpture in Havana. Instead of pursuing art as a career, Martí felt that his real talents were as a writer and poet. By the early age of 16, he had already contributed poems and articles to the local newspapers. In 1865 after hearing the news of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, he was inspired to seek freedom for the slaves in his country, and to achieve Cuban independence from Spain. In 1868, Cuban landowners started fighting in what came to be known as the Ten Years’ War. Even at this early age, Martí had definite opinions regarding political affairs, and wrote papers and editorials in support of the rebels. His good intentions backfired and he was convicted of treason. After confessing, he was sentenced to serve six years at hard labor. His parents did what they could to have their son freed but failed, even though at the age of sixteen he was still considered a minor. In prison, Martí’s legs were tightly shackled causing him to become sick with severe lacerations on his ankles. Two years later at the age of eighteen, he was released and sent to Spain where he continued his studies. Because of complications stemming from his time in prison, he had to undergo two surgical operations to correct the damage done to his legs by the shackles. End of part 1.

In Venezuela the price people pay for a dollar depends on who they are and what they do for a living. Venezuela’s leftist government sold dollars for 6.3 bolivars to an elite few.

He is a human credit card for me and for scores of diplomats, oil executives, journalists, and any person living in Venezuela who needs to convert a dollar paycheck into bolivars. He buys dollars from those who have them and sells dollars to Venezuelans and companies who desperately need them. He operates in secret. As far as the government is concerned his business doesn’t exist.

The generality of Mexicans refused the constitution, and the commander of the Spanish army in Mexico, General Agustin de Iturbide united with General Vicente Guerrero, commander of the insurgents (what remained of revolutionary forces launched by Fr. Hidalgo in 1810), in declaring the independence of Mexico. Thus, unlike the rest of Latin America, where independence came as the result of direct assaults on altar and throne by men like Bolivar, it was brought about in Mexico to defend them. Iturbide and Guerrero produced on February 24, 1821 the Plan of Iguala (from the town where it was proclaimed). This plan had three guarantees: 1) Mexico was to be an independent monarchy—under a Spanish or some other European prince; 2) Native and foreign-born Spanish were to be equal; and 3) Catholicism was to be the religion of the state and no others were to be tolerated. The following August 24, the Viceroy, Don Juan O’Donoju surrendered, and Mexico became an independent empire. No European prince would accept the throne, however, and so Iturbide became Emperor Agustin I on May 19, 1822. But influences from the north opposed the idea of a Catholic Mexican Empire; these inspired certain elements to back Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana against Agustin, who was deposed on March 19, 1823, and went into exile. He returned a year later, attempted unsuccessfully to regain the throne, and was executed. The next year saw the appointment of Joel Poinsett as first American Consul in Mexico. In this country, Poinsett is remembered as the importer of Poinsettia, which is so much a part of our Christmas celebrations. But in Mexico he is recalled as the originator of “Poinsettismo,” as the interference of the United States in the internal affairs of Mexico is often called there. He introduced the Masonic lodges into Mexico, and helped organize and strengthen the anti-clerical Liberal Party. From that day to this, the Mexican Liberals have always looked to the United States for assistance in battling the pro-Catholic Conservatives.

Bolivar prophesied shrewdly that the United States seemed fated by Providence to plague America with woes in the name of liberty. General Motors or IBM will not step graciously into our shoes and raise the old banners of unity and emancipation which fell in battle; nor can heroes betrayed yesterday be redeemed by the traitors of today. It is a big load of rottenness that has to be sent to the bottom of the sea on the march to Latin America's reconstruction. The task lies in the hands of the dispossessed, the humiliated, the accursed. The Latin American cause is above all a social cause: the rebirth of Latin America must start with the overthrow of its masters, country by country. We are entering times of rebellion and change. There are those who believe that destiny rests on the knees of the gods; but the truth is that it confronts the conscience of man with a burning challenge.

Bolivar looked at the water bucket with irritation. “I’d like to shoot this damn bucket full of holes,” he said. “I don’t think you could hit that bucket if you was sitting on it,” Augustus said. “I’ve seen you shoot. You ain’t the worst shot I ever knew—that would be Jack Jennell—but you run him a close race. Jack went broke as a buffalo hunter quicker than any man I ever knew. He couldn’t have hit a buffalo if one had swallowed him.

The Master plucked a few larger chunks of flesh off its torso. It found that it could not move quickly and freely without shedding some of its wretched exterior. This host vehicle would not last. Bolivar, standing ready near the low burrow that was the room’s exit, was an available option and an acceptable short-term physical candidate for this great honor. For Bolivar had no Dear Ones to cling to, which was one prerequisite for hosting. But Bolivar had only just begun the second stage of evolution. He was not fully mature yet. It could wait. It would wait. The Master had much to do at present. The Master led the way, stooping and claw-wriggling out of the chamber, swiftly clambering along the low, winding tunnels, Bolivar following right behind. It emerged into a larger chamber, nearer to the surface, the wide floor a soft bed of damp soil like that of a perfect, empty garden. Here, the ceiling was high enough even for the Master to stand erect. As the unseen sun set above, darkness beginning its nightly rule, the soil around the Master began to stir. Limbs appeared, a small hand here, a thin leg there, like shoots of vegetation growing out of the ground. Young heads, still topped with hair, rising slowly. Some of them blank-faced, others twisted with the pain of their night rebirth.

You can't speak with calm about a person who never knew calm; of Bolivar you can only speak from mountaintops, or amid thunder and lightning, or with a fistful of freedom in one hand and the corpse of tyranny at your feet.

Cuando se está joven y no muy sólidamente formado, uno tiende a creer más en las personas que en las ideas; es cuando cree uno que valen más los hechos morales que las propias realidades históricas”.

Sin embargo, el amor, por más sincera y poderosa que se manifieste su fuerza, plantea dilemas que desgarran y hacen vacilar el alma. Su propia certidumbre engendra incertidumbres y desasosiego que a veces son como mortal herida”.

Y entonces entendí, y lo entendería de una vez y para siempre, que “el amor es hielo abrasador, es fuego helado, un breve descanso muy cansado”.

Quizá ni ellos ni muchos otros han comprendido que las revoluciones les deben mucho más a los soñadores y a los que se embriagan de ideales, que a los que hacen cálculos mezquinos y mercenarios al suponer que el poder es exclusivamente una forma de ganar nuevos privilegios o de perpetuar los antiguos”.

A veces he pensado que la lucha contra la opresiva rutina es un factor decisivo que lleva a los hombres a buscar el riesgo de las conmociones y las revoluciones. La rutina es a la vida social lo que el matrimonio es al amor: desdibuja sus complacencias con el riesgo y lo convierte en una realidad sin magia y sin peligro, que termina ahogando sus maravillosos embrujos”.