"The world needs a certain leadership to confront its current realities. We are already six billion people on Earth. It is almost certain that in only five more decades we will be 9.5 billion. It will be an enormous challenge to provide food, health care, education, employment, clothing, footwear, housing, drinking water, electric energy and transportation to such a great number of people who will live in precisely the poorest countries."
Quotes
"We hope that at the Latin American Medical School the students of our Latin American sister nations can be instilled with the same doctrine we teach our own doctors, that is, the same full dedication to their noble future profession. For us, a doctor is like a church minister, a priest, a missionary, a crusader for health and physical and mental wellbeing".
"We are proud of our medical system. We will continue to trust the integrity of our doctors. May none of them ever be swayed by the temptation to grant privileges to someone offering a gift. There is no need to turn down a gift offered to a doctor as a sign of gratitude. What a Cuban doctor must never do is discriminate against a citizen of our country who does not have the resources to offer a gift or is not in the habit of doing so. May corruption and bribes never enter the ranks of our health care workers".
"Private medicine grants privileges to those who have money to the detriment of those who do not have it and nothing could be more inhumane than that. It is unbelievable that rich societies that apply this and many other similar policies speak of human rights and humanity when their own system is the most inhumane, the most egotistic, the most individualistic and the most alienating".
"There are no exceptions when it comes to health care services; everybody seeks them out. And those are decisive, dramatic moments for people. It is dramatic when a child or a young person is illiterate but it is more dramatic still when a child dies for lack of medical care, or when a person, whether young or old, dies because no medical care was available. This is why I believe the medical profession is so noble and so highly regarded, and this is why it upsets me when this profession is commercialized".
“Sports require discipline, and they teach children and young people a great deal about discipline, resistance, stability, perseverance and courage. They help build character and promote better health and physical and mental development”.
"We will establish, with the utmost urgency, a modern and efficient doping control laboratory that will cooperate with the countries of the region that require it. Likewise, as we have done in the field of medicine where we are also a major force, we will not only contribute to the development of sports through cooperation with Cuban specialists but are also seriously considering the establishment of a Latin American and Caribbean school of physical education and sports, so that these nations will have their own specialists to promote this noble and healthy activity in their own countries".
“The most important thing will be your full commitment to the most noble and human trade: saving lives and preserving health. More than doctors you shall be conscientious guardians of the most precious human possession; you shall be apostles and builders of a more humane world.”
"To speak of exercise and sports is not to speak of world and Olympic champions, it is to speak of daily, ongoing well-being, it is to speak of a good health, it is to speak of the capacity for study and work. To speak of physical education and sports is to speak of a science, a universal activity".
"To speak of physical exercise and sports is to speak of health; it is to speak of discipline, of forming young people’s character, of healthy habits, of the battle against drugs. Sports are the antithesis of drugs; sports are the antithesis of alcoholism. Sports and physical exercise are a preventive remedy for many illnesses that can kill or disable, such as obesity, or a decrease in a person’s faculties".
“Without socialism, Cuban families could not watch their children grow up healthy, educated and skilled, with no fear of them being lured into drugs or crime, or killed at school by their own classmates.Without socialism, Cuba would not be, as it is today, the most solid barrier in the hemisphere against drug trafficking, something that benefits even American society”.
“(…) the smoking habit which is being reduced and will be reduced even more. Or at least anyone who smokes should do so at home or in some place where he or she is alone and not where 30, 40 or 50 people are gathered together”.