“We do not fear dialogue; we do not need to invent enemies; we do not fear the debate of ideas; we believe in our convictions and with them we have known how to defend and continue defending our homeland”.
“It’s the duty of the people, it’s the duty of the Revolution, it’s the duty of the homeland, to make way for intelligence, to open chances for intelligence, to make way for vocation, to make way for virtue and merit!”.
“If behind the free flag, if behind the redeeming Revolution there were not a firm and heroic people like this one, the homeland would neither be free nor the flag would be sovereign, nor would the Revolution march forward with the unwavering firmness with which it marches.”.
“Today more than ever we must be followers of Bolívar. Now more than ever we must raise the banner with the concept that humanity is our motherland, aware that we can only be saved if humanity is saved. We can only be free --and we are very far from being free-- if and when humanity is free. If and when we achieve a really fair world, which is possible and probable”.
“Cubans haven’t wanted anything other than that the determinations guiding their conduct should be theirs; that theirs and theirs alone should be the lone star that flutters in our homeland! That the laws should be theirs; that their natural wealth should be theirs; that their democratic and revolutionary institutions should be theirs.”
"We will know how to resist any aggression, but that we will know how to overcome any aggression, and that again we would have no other dilemma than that with which we began the revolutionary struggle: that of freedom or death".
“The homeland, brothers and sisters, is the task of all those who are prepared to sacrifice themselves for it. It is an altar and not a pedestal, as Marti used to say: an altar where each and everyone will lay down their best, without any noise or alarm, for the benefit of a collective work that cannot be postponed, and not a platform or pedestal to raise up a futile pretence of accumulating dubious and belated merits based on intrigue or treason.”
“Thank you for coming to bolster us in this difficult struggle we are involved in today to save the ideas for which you fought so valiantly, to save the Revolution, the homeland and the conquests of socialism, which is a part that has been carried out of the great dreams you harboured!”
“[...]How great our people are! How invincible a just cause is! How important it is to believe in human beings! How beautiful it is to fight for great ideals! How much light and happiness can emanate from an innocent little boy as a gift to the people who were prepared to die for one of their most beloved sons!”
“Honor is not negotiable; the homeland is not negotiable; dignity is not negotiable; independence, sovereignty, history and glory are not negotiable!”In the closing ceremony of the first International Congress on Culture and Development