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“Educational enterprises do not for any length of time remain immune from the struggle of interests for power which is the dominant feature of social life under a class system.”
Source : "Some Notes on Workers' Education" by A. J. Muste, first published in "New International", Volume 2, No. 7 (pp. 225-227), www.marxists.org. December 1935. 
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“Besides the actual reading in class of many poems, I would suggest you do two things: first, while teaching everything you can and keeping free of it, teach that poetry is a mode of discourse that differs from logical exposition”
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“As the Internet breaks down the last justifications for a professional class of politicians, it also builds up the tools for replacing them.”
Source : Aaron Swartz (2016). “The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings of Aaron Swartz”, p.188, The New Press
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“I hold that if the Almighty had ever made a set of men that should do all the eating and none of the work, he would have made them with mouths only and no hands, and if he had ever made another class that he intended should do all the work and none of the eating, he would have made them without mouths and with all hands.”
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“The black man continues on his way. He plods wearily no longer-he is striding freedom road with the knowledge that if he hasn't got the world in a jug, at least he has the stopper in his hand.”
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“Racism oppresses its victims, but also binds the oppressors, who sear their consciences with more and more lies until they become prisoners of those lies. They cannot face the truth of human equality because it reveals the horror of the injustices they commit.”
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“There is a certain indolence in us, a wish not to be disturbed, which tempts us to think that when things are quiet, all is well. Subconsciously, we tend to give the preference to 'social peace,' though it be only apparent, because our lives and possessions seem then secure. Actually, human beings acquiesce too easily in evil conditions; they rebel far too little and too seldom. There is nothing noble about acquiescence in a cramped life or mere submission to superior force.”
Source : "The Essays of A. J. Muste (Pacifism and Class War)". Book edited by Nat Hentoff, 1967.
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“The survival of democracy depends on the renunciation of violence and the development of nonviolent means to combat evil and advance the good.”
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“Now you see. We are all fugitives. We have always been fugitives from the void. Whatever comfort, whatever power we gain from outside of ourselves diminishes us -- because comfort and power, unless they are won from the void inside of us, are illusions that make us forget the emptyness that carries us. When we forget that, we believe we deserve comfort and power and so are capable of any evil. We deserve nothing but what we make of ourselves. We deserve nothing else. And when we understand that, then nothing is enough.”
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“I would say about individuals, A Individual dies when they cease to to be surprised. I am surprised every morning when I see the sunshine again. When I see an act of evil I don't accomodate, I don't accomodate myself to the violence that goes on everywhere. I am still so surprised! That is why I am against it. We must learn to be surprised.”
