“Cuba has twice as many doctors per capita as all of the highest developed nations. No country has given, or is giving, more support to other peoples’ health care services, free of charge, than Cuba and no other has saved more lives. Thus, our people do not have, nor could it have, any inclination to become a bio-weapons producer.”
Quotes
"Today we are striving to perfect the work accomplished up until now, and proceeding on the basis of entirely new ideas and concepts. Today we are seeking for what should be and will be, in our judgment, an educational system that increasingly corresponds to the equality, full justice, self-esteem and moral and social needs of all people in the type of society that Cubans have decided to build."
"The methods, discipline and rigor of the National Ballet School have produced formidable artists".
“And our people will have enough awareness to know what the world is all about, and what is happening in the world. That is why history is so important, the history of our country, so that they know where things are happening and what the roots were of what our people are doing today. And throughout the world, because communications truly have become globalized in the world today, everything, the economy, neoliberal globalization has been imposed and has led them to the current situation.”
“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”.
“We take comfort in our conviction that the circumstances preventing our cooperation in many fields where it could be useful will not last forever.”
“Differences related to the rich and poor countries, both between them and within them, have grown and deepened; in other words, there is an ever wider gap in the distribution of wealth, the greatest scourge of our era, resulting in poverty, hunger, ignorance, disease and unbearable pain and suffering for countless human beings”.
“Perhaps the most useful contribution to the struggle for a better world that we can make through our modest efforts will be to demonstrate how much can be done with so little, if all of the human and material resources of a society are put at the service of the people.”
“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.”
“Politics, I would say, is a combination of both science and art, although it is more art than science. We cannot forget that in both cases, responsibility lies with human beings, and they are as varied and variable as the particles contained in their genetic makeup”.
“The former colonies of powers that divided the world among them and plundered it for centuries constitute today the group of underdeveloped countries. There is nothing like full independence, fair treatment on equal footing or national security for any of us; none is a permanent member of the UN Security Council with a veto right; none has any possibility to be involved in the decisions of the International Financial Institutions; none can keep its best talents; none can protect itself from the flight of capital or the destruction of Nature and the environment caused by the squandering, selfish and insatiable consumerism of the economically developed countries.”
“It seems to me that one of the best things that is being done in our country is the revolution we are carrying out in education, which includes a general comprehensive education, that includes not just the professional knowledge a person must possess but the minimum of cultural knowledge in order to possess an artistic culture, a general culture and a political culture.”