“What we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean.”

“What we are trying to do may be just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

“All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.”

“The Portuguese are the unknown people. We are lost in this vast country. Nobody knows we are here. To be Portuguese in America is to be a stone dropped in the middle of the ocean. It sinks beneath the waves and vanishes without a trace.”

“The idea of building communist society exclusively with the hands of the Communists is childish, absolutely childish. We communists are but a drop in the ocean, a drop in the ocean of the people.”

“We measure the earth, sun, stars, and ocean depths. We burrow into the depths of the earth for gold. We search for rivers and mountains on the moon. We discover new stars and know their magnitudes. We sound the depths of gorges and build clever machines. Each day brings a new invention. What don’t we think of! What can’t we do! But there is something else, the most important thing of all, that we are missing. We do not know exactly what it is. We are like a small child who knows he does not feel well but cannot explain why. We are uneasy, because we know a lot of superfluous facts; but we do not know what is really important—ourselves.”

“Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it's some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don't know nothin' but what we see.”

“Sonny, don't you tell me what's worthwhile--true love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops. Everybody knows that.”

“In the sea of people we are after all but a drop in the ocean, and we can administer only when we express correctly what the people are conscious of. Unless we do this the Communist Party will not lead the proletariat, the proletariat will not lead the masses, and the whole machine will collapse.”

“What a culture we live in, we are swimming in an ocean of information, and drowning in ignorance.”