Open Veins of Latin America Quotes

“The Nobodies

Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream of escaping
poverty: that one magical day good luck will suddenly rain down on
them---will rain down in buckets. But good luck doesn't rain down
yesterday, today, tomorrow, or ever. Good luck doesn't even fall in a
fine drizzle, no matter how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their
left hand is tickling, or if they begin the new day with their right
foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms.

The nobodies: nobody's children, owners of nothing. The nobodies: the
no ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life,
screwed every which way.

Who are not, but could be.
Who don't speak languages, but dialects.
Who don't have religions, but superstitions.
Who don't create art, but handicrafts.
Who don't have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have faces, but arms.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the police
blotter of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“Our defeat was always implicit in the victory of others; our wealth has always generated our poverty by nourishing the prosperity of others - the empires and their native overseers. In the colonial and neocolonial alchemy, gold changes into scrap metal and food into poison.”
― Eduardo Hughes Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“El subdesarrollo no es una etapa del desarrollo. Es su consecuencia.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“La historia es un profeta con la mirada vuelta hacia atrás: por lo que fue, y contra lo que fue, anuncia lo que será.”
― Eduardo Hughes Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“Development develops inequality.”
― Eduardo Hughes Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“Latin America is the region of open veins. Everything from the discovery until our times, has always been transmuted into European--or later--United States-- capital, and as such has accumulated on distant centers of power. Everything: the soil, its fruits nad its mineral-rich depths, the people and their capacity to work and to consume, natural resources and human resources.”
― Eduardo Hughes Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“Veneration for the past has always seemed to me reactionary. The right chooses to talk about the past because it prefers dead people: a quiet world, a quiet time. The powerful who legitimize their privileges by heredity cultivate nostalgia. History is studied as if we are visiting a museum; but this collection of mummies is a swindle. They lie to us about the past as they lie to us about the present: they mask the face of reality. They force the oppressed victims to absorb an alien, desiccated, sterile memory fabricated by the oppressor, so that they will resign themselves to a life that isn’t theirs as if it were the only one possible.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“Along the way we have even lost the right to call ourselves Americans, although the Haitians and the Cubans appeared in history as new people a century befire the Mayflower pilgrims settled on the Plymouth coast. For the world today, America is just the United States; the region we inhabit is a sub-America, a second-class America of nebulous identity.”
― Eduardo Hughes Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“There is nothing more orderly than a cemetery.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“Here," an old sugar worker told me, "the people have a great love for martyrs--but only after they're dead. Before, there's nothing but complaints.”
― Eduardo Hughes Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“El desarrollo es un viaje con más náufragos que navegantes.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Las venas abiertas de América Latina

“The Latin American cause is about 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.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“The food of the minority is the hunger of the majority.”
― Eduardo Hughes Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“Religious disintegration began with colonization.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Las venas abiertas de América Latina

“Bolivians die with rotted lungs so that the world may consume cheap tin.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“The human murder by poverty in Latin America is secret: every year, without making a sound, three Hiroshima bombs explode over communities that have become accustomed to suffering with clenched teeth.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“We live in a world that treats the dead better than the living. We, the living are askers of questions and givers of answers, and we have other grave defects unpardonable by a system that believes death, like money, improves people.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“Hay quienes creen que el destino descansa en las rodillas de los dioses, pero la verdad es que trabaja, como un desafío candente, sobre las conciencias de los hombres.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Las venas abiertas de América Latina

“Bacteria and viruses were the most effective allies.”
― Eduardo Hughes Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“De acuerdo con los términos de este breve pero jugoso manifiesto capitalista, la ley de la selva es el código que naturalmente rige la vida humana y la injusticia no existe, puesto que lo que conocemos por injusticia no es más que la expresión de la cruel armonía del universo: son países son pobres, son pobres porque... son pobres; el destino está escrito en los astros y solo nacemos para cumplirlo: unos, condenados a obedecer; otros señalados para mandar. El autor fue el artífice de la política del Fondo Monetario Internacional en Brasil.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Las venas abiertas de América Latina

“Cuando el Estado se hace dueño de la principal riqueza de un país, corresponde preguntarse quién es el dueño del Estado.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Las venas abiertas de América Latina

“Cuanto más codiciado por el mercado mundial, mayor es la desgracia que un producto trae consigo al pueblo latinoamericano que, con su sacrificio, lo crea.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Las venas abiertas de América Latina

“El sistema ha multiplicado el hambre y el miedo; la riqueza continuó concentrándose y la pobreza difundiéndose. Así”
― Eduardo Galeano, Las venas abiertas de América Latina

“El subdesarrollo no es una etapa del desarrollo. Es su consecuencia. El subdesarrollo de América Latina proviene del desarrollo ajeno y continúa alimentándolo.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“«La muerte es cierta, la hora incierta. Cada cual tiene su tiempo marcado»,”
― Eduardo Galeano, Las venas abiertas de América Latina

“Los indios han padecido y padecen - síntesis del drama de toda América Latina- la maldición de su propia riqueza.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“The division of labor among nations is that some specialize in winning and others in losing. Our part of the world, known today as Latin America, was precocious: it has specialized in losing ever since those remote time when Renaissance Europeans ventured across the ocean and buried their teeth in the throats of the Indian civilizations.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“We are what we do, especially what we do to change what we are....In
this respect a "revolutionary" literature written for the convinced is just as
much an abandonment as is a conservative literature devoted to the . . .
contemplation of one's own navel.”
― Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

“«Sería curioso que del seno mismo de los Estados Unidos, de donde nos viene el mal, naciese también el remedio».”
― Eduardo Galeano, Las venas abiertas de América Latina

“The Revolution is indeed living thorough the hard times of transition and sacrifice. The Cubans themselves have learned that socialism is built with clenched teeth and that revolution is no evening stroll. But afterall, if the future came on a platter, it would not be of this world.”
― Eduardo Hughes Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent