“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.”
Quotes
“I think the imperialists have a lot to learn about the significance of such a social force as this. Lenin said that a Revolution was worth its name when it could defend itself. The truth is our Revolution has shown that it can defend itself. And it does so with powerful instruments.”
"Imperialism is the one that needs weapons, since it is bereft of ideas. In order to maintain this opprobrious system as well as all those situations that have been described here, it needs weapons; it has to maintain all those situations by resorting to the use of force".
“Imperialism is the one that needs weapons, since it is bereft of ideas. In order to maintain this opprobrious system as well as all those situations that have been described here, it needs weapons; it has to maintain all those situations by resorting to the use of force. But if there are ideas, if ideas in fact exist, we can defend those ideas; we can make those ideas to succeed. Ideas do not require weapons as long as they are able to conquer the big masses. Nobody should think that the contradiction between Socialism and Capitalism could be solved by force; one has to be mad to think that way. And the imperialists are the ones who think that way. That is why they keep their military basis everywhere in the World. They threaten the whole world; they intervene anywhere.”
“In these crucial years, the most powerful capitalist power having the most resources in all times has permitted itself the luxury of living like a parasite off the savings of the rest of the world which has not only seen itself forced to finance its fiscal and trade deficit as never before, but also an arms race without parallel in history.”
"Can the empire and the system responsible for all this really talk to the world about human rights? Human rights within a system where a large part of the population is unemployed, where women are prostituted, where children are abandoned? The numbers of abandoned children in Latin America are impressive, they number millions, many millions. How can this system offer hope to mankind? How can this system speak of consideration for mankind?
That’s why we have so much faith in socialism, and we have so much confidence in socialism and such deep socialist convictions".
“If there is something we are sure of, is that never again the predatory eagle symbolizing the empire will perch on these columns which were turned into a monument of what the empire was in our country and what will happen sooner or later, to its desire for enslaving the world.”
“How well we know the Yankees! Had we given way one single time to the demands of the imperialists, the Cuban Revolution would not exist. What has held the imperialists back is the heroism of our people, the price they know they have to pay for an aggression on our country.”
“It is worthwhile indicating that the main responsibility for the brutal destruction of the environment lies with the consumer societies. They are the offspring of the old colonial metropolises and of imperialist policies that also begot the poverty and backwardness which are today the scourge of the overwhelming majority of humanity.”
“We look at the entire planet, in hopes it will survive, that the men will find enough intelligence and energy to survive, that mankind will find
enough consciousness and spirit to fight, because only fighting anarchy, fighting the madness of the empire and the system it represents mankind will be able to survive.”
“[…] we must remember that on this day, on an afternoon such as this, the socialist nature of the Revolution was proclaimed. That, we could say, was the first great salvo fired in response to the aggression.”
“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.”