Quote by José Martí: “Mountains know secrets we need to learn.”

The natural world — ancient, slow, and vast beyond human time — holds truths that human civilisation has not yet grasped. Mountains have existed for millions of years, enduring what people cannot. This is a call to humility before nature, and to learning from its endurance rather than trying to conquer it.

Martí wrote extensively in the early 1890s as Cuba was still under Spanish rule and Latin American nations were grappling with the influence of the United States. His 1891 essay Nuestra América argued for a distinctly Latin American identity rooted in indigenous and mestizo experience rather than European models.

Cuban poet, essayist, and independence leader who is considered the apostle of Cuban independence. His writing laid the intellectual foundation for Cuba's 1895 war of independence from Spain, and he died in combat in the same year.