"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
“[…]They should know by now that, as far as the Cuban people is concerned, the ideals that inspire freedom, dignity, love of one’s homeland, its identity, its culture and the strictest sense of justice that human beings can conceive of are more valuable than anything on Earth..”
“We, in our country, have a concept: all our young people must be prepared to lead the country, all our young people must be prepared to defend the homeland. All of our young people, as their primary duty, must learn to read and write, all of them must acquire a revolutionary conscience.”
“We are fighting in the defence of the sacred Homeland and the Revolution, against the mercenary attack organized by the imperialist government of the United States.”
“Never have we even played around with a single principle just to receive favours from imperialism! And it has been in that spirit and with that awareness that our people have been brought up; in the spirit that other peoples’ causes cannot be sold, that principles cannot be downtrodden, that principles cannot be reviled.”
“This is highly symbolic because it shows us how crime cannot kill ideas, how crime cannot stop the victorious march of a people; how crime, no matter how monstrous, cannot kill life, and how the life of each one of us does not belong to ourselves, but it belongs to everyone. We are all part of something that is greater than we are, and that is Homeland, the people; our lives are part of the infinite and immortal life of the Cuban nation and of our revolutionary people.”