From the standpoint of a higher economic form of society, private ownership of the globe by single individuals will appear quite as absurd as private ownership of one man by another. Even a whole society, a nation, or even all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not the owners of the globe. They are only its possessors, its usufructuaries, and, like boni patres familias, they must hand it down to succeeding generations in an improved condition.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Karl Marx Capital Vol 3; Chapter 46

Postmetaphysical generation

If the remnant of the intersubjectively shared self-understanding that makes human(e) intercourse with one another possible is not to disintegrate, this potential must be master anew by every generation. Each must be able to recognise him- or herself in all that wears a human face.

Jurgen Habermas – Postmetaphysical thinking pp 15

Spectacular generation

“In all that has happened in the last twenty years, the most important change lies in the very continuity of the spectacle. Quite simply, the spectacle’s domination has succeeded in raising a whole generation moulded to its laws. The extraordinary new conditions in which this entire generation has lived constitute a comprehensive summary of all that, henceforth, the spectacle will forbid; and also all that it will permit.” 

Guy Debord 1988

Jeffersonian generation

"The generation which commences a revolution can rarely complete it.  Habituated from their infancy to passive submission of body and mind to their kings and priests...their experience, their ignorance and bigotry make them instruments in the hands of the Bonapartes and Iturbides, to defeat their own rights and purposes.  This is the present situation in Europe and Spanish America. But it is not desperate. The light which has been shed on mankind by the art of printing has eminently changed the condition of the world..It continues to spread..."

Oh...Please!

Potty Generation

"This is one of those films that will be central to a generation's sense of itself, and no one should miss it. Its excellence is more than enough to scotch the cynicism of the marketing campaign surrounding it."

The Daily Telegraph, On Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone - Saturday Nov 17, 2001

Other...

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

Anatole France (from The Red Lily, 1894)

“How can a rational being be ennobled by anything that is not obtained by its own exertion?”

Mary Wollstonecraft

“Today, the more man is a social being the more he is an object (2).”

Raoul Vaneigem