“I have never doubted the ethics that usually characterize the people, independent of the policy of governments.”
“In peoples’ history, it has been subjective factors that have brought forward or delay outcomes, independently of the leaders’ worth.”.
“Today the crisis the world is going through does not and cannot affect only one country, a subcontinent or a continent; it affects everyone. Therefore, that imperial system and the economic order it has imposed on the world cannot be sustained. Peoples which have decided to fight, not only for their independence but also for their very survival can never be defeated, even when we are talking of only one people”.
“To correct matters in their country, Cubans had been fighting for a long time. But there was a greater force which prevented us from correcting things in our country. This force was the imperialist penetration of the United States in our homeland. It was this force which frustrated our full independence. It was this force which prevented Calixto García and his brave soldiers in Santiago de Cuba from succeeding. It was this force which prevented the liberation army from undertaking revolution in the early days of the republic.
“Calixto García Íñiguez, one of the most glorious generals of our wars of independence, survived a gunshot to his chin, aimed at his head. His mother, who had refused to believe her son had been taken prisoner, on finding out the whole truth, exclaimed with pride: that’s my boy!”
“It is that men who play a role, depend completely on events that have nothing to do with their personal ability that can only show under certain circumstances. That is what happened with the forefathers of our independence and all personalities throughout history. Previous conditions are required for which no man take credit.”
“(…) saving peace with dignity, with independence and without a war is the cornerstone of the struggle that we should wage together for a truly just world of free peoples.”.
"Our independence, our principles and our social achievements we will defend with honor to the last drop of blood, if we are attacked!"
“History has taught us that access to independence of a people who have freed themselves from the colonial or neocolonial system is the final act of a long struggle and at the same time the first act of a new and difficult battle. Because the independence, sovereignty and liberty of our peoples, apparently free, are under continuous threats by the external control of their natural resources, by the financial impositions of official international agencies and by the precariousness of their economies depleted of sovereign plenitude.”
"The men who have fallen in our three wars of independence today join forces with the men who have fallen in this war. And we can say to all those who have fallen in our struggles for freedom that at last the time has come for their dreams to be fulfilled."