“A country with a general, all round education, which includes not only professional learning but also knowledge about science, arts and humanities. We will be [the best-educated people in the world] by a broad margin and in a short space of time, — in some things we already are the best-educated country in the world”.
“While the rest of the world is listening to the drums of war, and resources are squandered on manufacturing ever more sophisticated and destructive weapons, in Cuba we are revolutionizing education to expand the knowledge of new generations, universalizing access to centers of higher learning, taking art schools to every corner of the country, and setting the stage for the enjoyment and pleasure of artistic creation to reach everyone.”.
“Nature cannot be destroyed, and the rotten and wasteful consumer societies cannot prevail. There is a field where the production of wealth can be infinite: the field of knowledge, of culture and art in all its manifestations, including a painstaking ethical, esthetic and solidarity-based education, a full spiritual life, socially sound, mentally and physically healthy, without which it would be impossible to talk about quality of life.”
“New knowledge is not in the hands of the poor nations who today make up three-quarters of the world’s population. It is in the hands of a privileged group of wealthy and developed capitalist powers, associated with the most powerful empire ever to exist, built on the bases of a globalized economy, governed by the very laws of capitalism described by Marx and thoroughly studied by him. Nowadays, as humankind still suffers from these realities due to the very dialectics of events, we must confront these dangers.”
“The middle classes are playing a very important role when certain national and international situations arise. The middle classes are dangerous for the current prevailing order, because they have knowledge.”
"In one single African village –as we have already said and we shall repeat as many times as necessary– a Cuban internationalist doctor can at the same time train several excellent doctors at his side, in the biggest laboratory in the world, the community, to struggle against the particular diseases affecting each specific region in Africa. The books accompanying this doctor would be used as a common source of knowledge".
"The current crisis and the brutal measures of the US administration to save itself will bring more inflation, more devaluation of the national currencies, more painful losses in the markets, lower prices for basic export commodities and more unequal exchange. But, they will also bring to the peoples a better understanding of the truth, a greater conscience, more rebelliousness and more revolutions".
"This stairway, to which I never imagined I would be returning, keeps some indelible memories of the years when I began to become aware of our era and our duty. One can acquire knowledge and awareness throughout one’s lifetime".
“There is still much that our increasingly united, better-educated and stronger people can do. We will not rest in our heroic and worthy struggle. We will honor every objective we sworn in Baraguá. We will win the epic battle of ideas.”
“…the country will have much more but it will never be a consumer society. It will be a society of knowledge, of culture, of the most extraordinary human development imaginable, development in art, culture, science [...] with a breadth of liberty that no one will be able to dismantle. We know this already, we don’t need to proclaim it, but it is worth remembering.“