"Fate would have it that Venezuela should be the country to fight the most for the independence of this hemisphere. It began here and you had a legendary precursor like Miranda, who even lead a French army in campaign waging famous battles which, at a point in time, during the French Revolution, prevented an invasion of French territory".

"The United States only has the support of fragments of parties in Venezuela, united out of their fear of the revolution and out of material greed. This time they could not resort to a coup d’êtat in Venezuela as they did with Allende in Chile and in other counties in Our America. The armed forces of this fraternal country both promote and are a part of the Revolution".

 

“Our people are well aware of the standards that have governed over the irreproachable conduct of our Revolution since the first combat and that has never been sullied throughout more than half a century. They also know that they can never be pressured or blackmailed by their enemies. Our laws and regulations will invariably be abided by”.

“It seems to me that one of the best things that is being done in our country is the revolution we are carrying out in education, which includes a general comprehensive education, that includes not just the professional knowledge a person must possess but the minimum of cultural knowledge in order to possess an artistic culture, a general culture and a political culture.”

 

"Oil has become the principal wealth in the hands of the great Yankee transnationals; through this energy source they had an instrument that considerably expanded their political power in the world.  It was their main weapon when they decided to easily liquidate the Cuban Revolution as soon as the first just and sovereign laws were passed in our Homeland: depriving it of oil."

"The Party is our fundamental instrument, par excellence, of the Revolution and of the construction of socialism. It is an historic and extraordinarily difficult task because socialism had to be constructed under the conditions that our country has had to face."

 

“Along with the Revolution, one of the most unjust forms of discrimination that has existed has been disappearing: discrimination against women, of the kind that was not talked about but which lay there, continued to exist and weighed heavily upon the women of our country.” 

Speech given at the closing ceremony for the Third National Plenary Meeting of the Federation of Cuban Women on the Isle of Pines. February 19, 1965

“It is also said that the West has created a civilization inspired by Christian values.  Indeed, this is said of the West that has been responsible for so many wars and so many tragedies for humanity, of so much misery and so much poverty in the world, of so many conquests and so many colonies, of so much under-development which today plagues the Earth.” 

 

“Cuba would not be where it is today, nor would our homeland occupy the place it does today in the minds of the other peoples of the world, if behind the homeland, if behind the sovereign flag of the homeland, if this people were not behind the Revolution, if this people were not behind the Revolution.”

“They can make our people disappear from the face of the earth, but they can never defeat it; because our people with their reason, with their heroism, with their dignity, with their shame and their greatness of spirit is an invincible people, and it is a people that must be respected.”