"It is the duty of man to raise up man"
About this Quote
The phrase "raise up" carries double freight. It's literal uplift - education, material support, political inclusion - and it's a quiet indictment of a society organized to keep people down. Marti wrote as an anti-colonial activist in a 19th-century Cuba shaped by Spanish rule, slavery's afterlife, and the looming influence of the United States. In that context, "raise up man" reads as a rebuke to colonial hierarchies that classify some lives as improvable and others as expendable. He collapses those tiers: your freedom is suspect if it doesn't expand someone else's.
The subtext is also a warning about revolutions that swap flags but keep the same cruelty. Marti's nationalism was never meant to be an excuse for chauvinism; it was meant to be a vehicle for ethical transformation. The repetition of "man" matters here. It suggests a chain reaction: people become fully human by humanizing others. It's not charity. It's construction. A society is built, one raised-up person at a time, by citizens who refuse the comfort of standing above anyone.
Quote Details
| Topic | Servant Leadership |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Marti, Jose. (2026, January 15). It is the duty of man to raise up man. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-the-duty-of-man-to-raise-up-man-152040/
Chicago Style
Marti, Jose. "It is the duty of man to raise up man." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-the-duty-of-man-to-raise-up-man-152040/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It is the duty of man to raise up man." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-the-duty-of-man-to-raise-up-man-152040/. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026.












