"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".
Quotes
“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.”.
“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.”
“The peoples think that the only thing incompatible with the destiny of Latin America is misery, feudal exploitation, illiteracy, starvation wages, unemployment, the policy of repression against the masses of workers, peasants and students, discrimination against women, blacks, indigenous people and mestizos, the oppression of the oligarchies, the plundering of their wealth by the US monopolies, the moral suffocation of their intellectuals and artists, the ruin of their small producers by foreign competition, the economic underdevelopment, the peoples without roads, without hospitals, without housing, without schools, without industries, the submission to imperialism, the renunciation of national sovereignty and the betrayal of the homeland”.
“We know that nothing will crush the Revolution, but we also know that every new effort makes us stronger, makes our Revolution stronger, makes our Revolution safer and makes our Revolution freer; it also strengthens our people as the master of their destiny…!”
“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
“Our country could be swept off the Earth, but it could never be conquered and submitted.”
“Trust in Cuba! Cuba is not just defending its own sovereignty over there in that trench: we understand that from that trench we are also defending the interests of other Latin American peoples.”
“I say that this is not a unipolar world, because there is at least a piece of land --and it is not the only one—where the Yankees do not rule, where the Yankees will not rule. And if they were to try to one day, it would have to be on our ashes, on our bones, on our blood.”
“A year ago already, as expression of our sovereign political will, we decided to constitute the Association of Caribbean States. We have before us a great challenge. It is a matter of forging a mutual destiny for nations that are remarkably dissimilar in terms of size, population and development […] The region understands, ultimately, that the future path for our peoples lies in unity.”
“We can rightly say that it was the cradle of South African liberation; but one day it will also be considered the cradle of African dignity. And it’s not that Africa has not fought, or that Africa has not carried out thousands and tens of thousands of heroic deeds but this was the most painful stronghold of a system of slavery and injustice that has existed for thousands of years, and particularly in the of Africa, Latin America and the Third World, it prevailed hundreds of years.”
"Namely, that there can be no culture without sovereignty".