"In a spirit of confessions, I could say that when I finished studying in this university, I thought I was very revolutionary and basically, I was just starting on a much longer path. If at that time I felt that I was a revolutionary or a socialist, if I had absorbed all the ideas that made me who I am, and I could be nothing other than a revolutionary. I assure you today, in all modesty, that I feel ten times, twenty times, even a hundred times more revolutionary than I was then. If at that time I was willing to give up my life, today I am a thousand times more willing to give up my life for the revolution."
Quotes
“There must be an end to stupidity in the world, and to abuse, and to the empire based on might and terror. It will disappear when all fear disappears. Every day there are more fearless countries. Every day there will be more countries that will rebel and the empire will not be able to keep that infamous system alive any longer.”
“Fortunately, our Revolution can still count on cadres from the old guard and others who were very young in the early stages of the process. Some were very young, almost children, when they joined the fight on the mountains and later they have given glory to the country with their heroic performance and their internationalist missions. They have the authority and the experience to guarantee the replacement. There is also the intermediate generation which learned together with us the basics of the complex and almost unattainable art of organizing and leading a revolution.”
“We are not a developed capitalist country in a crisis, one whose leaders go insane looking for solutions amidst a depression, inflation, a lack of markets and unemployment; we are and we should be socialists.”
“The European capitalist countries, saturated of productive capacity and commodities, are desperately in need of markets to avoid blue-collar and services workers lay-offs, to prevent savers from loosing their money and peasants from going broke. They are in no position to impose conditions and solutions to the rest of the world. That much has been proclaimed by important leaders from emerging countries and from those that being poor and economically plundered are the victims of unequal exchange.”
"Venezuela has the potential to become a model of socialist development with the resources formerly extracted by the multinationals from its rich nature and the efforts of it manual and intellectual workers. No foreign power shall determine its future. The people are the masters of their destiny and they march on to attain the highest levels of education, culture, health and full employment."
“(…) the best thing will always be to have a just cause to defend and the hope to continue moving forward”.
“Socialism can only move forward. The huge obstacles faced by socialism, especially when it comes to an underdeveloped economy like ours, can only be overcome through the broadest participation of the masses.”
“The order that has been currently established in the planet shall not be able to last. Soon after, it will inevitably collapse. The so called hard currencies will lose their value as the instrument of the system that has exacted a contribution of wealth and unlimited sweat and sacrifice from the peoples.”
“Human beings are capable of working either the most wonderful deeds or the worst inequities. Their amazing intelligence enables them to use the inalterable laws of nature to do right or wrong.”
“(…) I am optimistic on rational and solid grounds. The future worries me, but I believe evermore that the solution is within our grasp, if we are successful in having the truth reach a sufficient number of people among the billions inhabiting the planet”.
“In the current stage of the world, when some 200 countries have been recognized as independent states with the right to participate in the United Nations —ridiculous legal fiction—, the only chance to forge a ray of hope is by leading the masses, in a rational and calm way, to the understanding that all the inhabitants of the planet are facing a grave risk.”