Chick speech
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The chick speech is the speech given ritually at the beginning of Student Council meetings, often by Kiryuu Touga but later by other characters. The speech is delivered as the Student Council elevator ascends to the Seitokai balcony.
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English (Rose Collection translation)
If it cannot break out of its shell, the chick will die without being born. We are the chick. The world is our egg. If we cannot break the world's shell, we will die without being born. Smash the world's shell! For the revolution of the world.
Japanese (romaji)
Tamago no kara wo yaburaneba, hinadori wa umarezu ni shinde yuku. Warera ga hina da. Tamago wa sekai da. Sekai no kara wo yaburaneba, warera wa umarezu ni shinde yuku. Sekai no kara wo hakaise yo. Sekai wo kakumei suru tame ni!
Japanese (kanji/kana)
卵の殻を破らねば、ひな鳥は生まれずに死んでゆく。我らがひなだ。卵は世界だ。世界の殻を破らねば、我らは生まれずに死んでゆく。世界の殻を破壊せよ。世界を革命するために！
Symbolism
The chick speech bears a pronounced similarity to a passage from German Nobelist Hermann Hesse's novel Demian:
The bird struggles out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever wants to be born, must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas.
The already strong similarity between the imagery in both passages is emphasized by the official title of the musical composition that plays as the chick speech is delivered, The God's Name Is Abraxas.
Thematic parallels can be found regarding youth and revolution. The allusion to Demian emphasizes the urgency of the Student Council's desire for revolution. The metaphor of destroying a world -- and, in the source material, a belief system -- adds to the Student Council's aura of danger and mystique. Demian is subtitled "a novel of youth" and is often referred to as a "coming of age" story. However, it is notable that the narrator of Demian is not seeking to find a comfortable place in his community as he comes of age, rather he is challenged by Demian to become one of the founders of a new world and lifestyle. This mission and the treatment of the war in the latter parts of the novel harken to the Student Council's desire for world revolution as well as to Ohtori Akio's statement in Episode 13 that, "the young are forever aiming for the ends of the world" (which has also been translated in The Rose Collection as, "the young always wish to destroy the world").
In Demian, the narrator (Sinclair) also seeks a god who is master of both the "light" and "dark" worlds -- that is, master of both good and evil, both spiritual and carnal, both Apollonian and Dionysiac -- and whose followers could likewise embrace both parts of themselves. Such a god would stand in contrast to the Christian God, portrayed as being a god of only the light, who rejects the dark side of his followers and demands purity. "Abraxas," a name of uncertain origin, is put forth as the name of the god of both worlds. The allusion may compare or contrast Abraxas with Ohtori Akio, a being of the dark world born in the light world, who is explicitly compared to both Dios and Lucifer in the series. This search also resonates with the idea that a fairy-tale world is indirectly a source of suffering; anyone who cannot fit the role of idealistic Princes or Princess is an outcast.
Most likely due to these similarities, it has been proposed that the bindi that adorns Himemiya Anthy's forehead could (in addition to connecting her to Indian culture and its traditional Hindu religious significance) also be a reference to the mark of cain as it is presented in the novel.
