"Leaving aside the problems afflicting human beings today, our Homeland had the privilege of being the cradle of one of the most extraordinary thinkers born in this hemisphere: Jose Marti. (...) It would not be possible to appreciate the scope of his greatness without bearing in mind that the drama of his life was written with such extraordinary personalities as Antonio Maceo, an everlasting symbol of revolutionary firmness and the protagonist of the Baragua Protest, and Maximo Gomez, a Dominican internationalist and a teacher of Cuban combatants in the two wars of independence in which they took part. The Cuban Revolution, that for more than half a century has endured the battering of the most powerful empire that ever existed, was the result of the teachings of those predecessors."
Quotes
“(…) 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”.
"The United States only has the support of fragments of parties in Venezuela, united out of their fear of the revolution and out of material greed. This time they could not resort to a coup d’êtat in Venezuela as they did with Allende in Chile and in other counties in Our America. The armed forces of this fraternal country both promote and are a part of the Revolution".
"We, the Cuban revolutionaries, have committed errors, and we shall go on making mistakes, but never shall we make the mistake of being traitors.
Never have we chosen illegality, lies, demogoguery, duping the people, pretence, hypocrisy, opportunism, bribery, the total lack of ethics, abuses of power, including crime and repugnant tortures which, with obvious albeit doubtlessly worthy exceptions, have characterized the conduct of the presidents of the United States."
"Ten US presidents have come and gone, the eleventh is now passing through and the Socialist Revolution is standing firm. Also coming and going were all the governments that were accomplices to the crimes of the United States against Cuba, and our Revolution is standing firm. The USSR has disappeared and the Revolution moved forward.
It didn’t take place with the permission of the United States; instead it is being submitted to a cruel and merciless blockade; with terrorist acts that took the lives or injured thousands of people, whose authors today enjoy total impunity; anti-terrorist Cuban fighters are condemned to life sentences; a so-called Cuban Adjustment Act concedes entry, residence and employment in the United States. Cuba is the only country in the world whose citizens have that privilege, one that is denied to Haitians after the earthquake that killed more than 300,000 persons and the rest of the citizens in the hemisphere, those being persecuted and expelled by the empire. Nevertheless, the Cuban Revolution stands firm."
“No country on its own should look for or can come up with answers to the problems that the world faces today.”
"Oil has become the principal wealth in the hands of the great Yankee transnationals; through this energy source they had an instrument that considerably expanded their political power in the world. It was their main weapon when they decided to easily liquidate the Cuban Revolution as soon as the first just and sovereign laws were passed in our Homeland: depriving it of oil."
"The new generation is called upon to rectify and change, without hesitation, everything that needs to be rectified or changed and continue proving that socialism is also the art of the impossible: to build and carry on with the Revolution of the people, by the people and for the people and defend it, during half a century, from the mightiest power that has ever existed".
"Without it being a deliberate purpose of the Revolution, our country has become an example of what a small state can achieve if it steadfastly sustains a policy of principles even when scientific and technological advances, its patents and the distribution of the planet’s wealth is in the hands of the most developed and richest nations, that in times past were the colonial powers, disseminators of looting and poverty in our countries".
“Our people are well aware of the standards that have governed over the irreproachable conduct of our Revolution since the first combat and that has never been sullied throughout more than half a century. They also know that they can never be pressured or blackmailed by their enemies. Our laws and regulations will invariably be abided by”.
"(...) Nicolás Maduro, a man of the working class, modest, honorable and poor, who never aspired to any position whatsoever, and who is now devoting himself to fulfilling the responsibility placed in his hands by the unforgettable Hugo Chávez, leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, when fate prevented him from continuing to dedicate every minute, every second to what today constitutes humanity’s noblest dream".