“Our youth always keeps alive the memory of those medical students and of all those students who fought against tyrannical and corrupt governments.”
"Leaving aside the problems afflicting human beings today, our Homeland had the privilege of being the cradle of one of the most extraordinary thinkers born in this hemisphere: Jose Marti.
"When the invaders landed there, three roads crossed the marsh, some facilities had already been built and others were being built for tourism, even an airport in the vicinity of Giron Beach, the last stronghold of the enemy forces which our combatants took by assault on the evening of April 19, 1961. I have told that story before. We were at the point of recovering it in less than 30 hours. Diversion maneuvers by the U.S. Marines delayed our crushing tank attack in the early morning of the 18th.
"All languages should survive! Out of 6000 or 7000 languages in the world, some 2000 have been lost in recent years and it has been estimated that in the next 20 years, another 2000 will be lost. When a dialect is lost it is human spiritual wealth that loses and history, our history as human beings, the history of how we evolved from animals into humans. Sometimes, however, I think that there are many animals that have never known slavery, capitalism nor the exploitation of animals by animals, which often behave better than humans do".
"This is the Revolution, always looking for the best of the country, and with the best of the country preparing the best future for all Cubans. And so we go marching on with what we have. What we have is not perfect, we have received the inheritance of the past, an inheritance, in many ways negative, from the past".
“If at other times in our history Cuban revolutionaries had been discouraged by difficulties, there would not be today an independent country named Cuba”.
"The singing of the anthem on that October 20 came at the same time as the feat of arms with which the Revolution achieved its first and most important victory over Spanish colonial troops. Bayamo’s surrender and Céspedes’ victorious entry marked the culmination of the act of rebellion begun on October 10 in La Demajagua sugar plantation which marked an turning point in the country’s history and gave birth, over the rubble of the first colonial redoubts, to the Cuban nation".
"That brutal military alliance has become the most perfidious instrument of repression known in the history of humankind. NATO took on that global repressive role as soon as the USSR, which had served the United States as an excuse for its creation, ceased to exist".
"Nearly 50 years, the longest blockade in history. Thank you, Yankee Empire! You made us grow; you made us reach new heights along the years! You crowned the blood spilt by all of the Cubans who have fought and died here and elsewhere, with the shameful defeat of your cynical blockade, your cynical attempts to destroy us!"
"History has shown that it is only from deep crisis that great solutions have emerged. The peoples’ right to life and justice will definitely impose itself under a thousand different shapes".