“I believe this to be a turning point in our history: the tyranny has been overthrown. The rejoicing is immense. But there is still much to be done. We mustn't fool ourselves into believing that the future will be easy; everything may be more difficult in the future. Telling the truth is the first duty of all revolutionaries. Deceiving the people, raising false hopes, always brings the worst consequences, and I feel it's necessary to warn everyone against over-optimism.”
Quotes
"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".
“No revolutionary government that comes to power wants to have international conflicts. What it wants is devoting itself to the solution of its own problems; what it wants is implementing a platform, as do governments really interested in the progress of their countries”.
"Tenemos que revolucionar nuestros hábitos, tenemos que ser permanentemente revolucionarios y tenemos que ser revolucionarios dentro de la Revolución; tenemos que superarnos en todo constantemente."
“The revolutionary is a synthesis of human sensibility, the natural feeling of rejecting injustice and oppression”.
“We revolutionaries, by our natures, are optimists. But we do not believe in spontaneity: we believe in peace, in détente, in the civilized coexistence among governments, we must attain them with our struggle and with our strength”.
“If at other times in our history Cuban revolutionaries had been discouraged by difficulties, there would not be today an independent country named Cuba”.
"What is the ethic of a revolutionary? All revolutionary thinking begins with a bit of ethics; some values acquired from parents, others from teachers, but no one is born with these ideas. No one is born with the gift of speech, either; someone has to teach us to speak. The influence of the family is huge".
"(...) ethical values are essential. Without ethical values, there can be no revolutionary values".
“It is the ideas that bring us together, ideas make us a combatant people on a collective and not just an individual basis; ideas make us a mass of revolutionaries. Then, when all of the forces unite, then the people can never be defeated, and when the number of ideas grows, when the number of ideas and values to be defended grows and multiplies, that is when a people can truly never be defeated”.
“The education of the cadres will be the most important task to be mastered by the revolutionary parties. There will never be easy solutions; strictness and exigency must prevail. Let’s guard ourselves especially from those that throw down the drain the people’s principles and dreams together with the dirty water.”
"The duty of this new generation of revolutionary men and women is becoming an example of modest leaders, studious and tireless fighters for socialism. In the barbaric era of consumer societies, to overcome the capitalist production system that fosters and promotes selfish interests among human beings is, no doubt, a difficult challenge".