Fidel Castro Quotations

The revenues of Cuban state-run companies are used exclusively for the benefit of the people, to whom they belong.

I would not vote for the mayor. It's not just because he didn't invite me to dinner, but because on my way into town from the airport there were such enormous potholes.

The universities are available only to those who share my revolutionary beliefs.

No thieves, no traitors, no interventionists! This time the revolution is for real!

I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews.

A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.

I am not a communist and neither is the revolutionary movement.

I began revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and plan of action.

Men do not shape destiny, Destiny produces the man for the hour.

There is not Communism or Marxism, but representative democracy and social justice in a well-planned economy.

I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating... because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition.

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.

The revolution is a dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters.

North Americans don't understand... that our country is not just Cuba; our country is also humanity.

There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.

More than 820 million people in the world suffer from hunger; and 790 million of them live in the Third World.

My idea, as the whole world knows, is that the capitalist system now doesn't work either for the United States or the world, driving it from crisis to crisis, which are each time more serious.

A revolution is not a bed of roses.

Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away.

I am a Marxist-Leninist and I will be one until the last day of my life.

I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief.

I am Fidel Castro and we have come to liberate Cuba.

Where is the ethic, the justification, the respect for the most basic human rights and the common sense of such policies?

we remember forever for his deep caring, support and solidarity toward the Cuban people and our revolution.

What has the former football star done to be looking so good?

We have no objections at all to the three officials visiting us, to know their assessment and exchange views on these matters, ... We won't close the door.

We have no objection at all that the three US officials visit us to give their assessments and hold an exchange on these matters,

There are even irresponsible families who sell their daughters' bodies and insensitive neighbors who think this is the most natural thing in the world ... until tragedy and disease strike,

We shall always be grateful for that gesture,

The pope is our guest. ... We will do everything to the hilt to ensure that the visit will be historic,

We have just received 12 locomotives from China. They are simply the best our country has received. They are the most modern, most efficient and of best value.

The plane will be ready to leave Tuesday if the visas are granted,

Life has its ups and downs, you can fall down, but you can also get up. I have friends, my daughters and a very great spirit of struggle which is comforting in finding another opportunity. My family has helped me a lot along this road; now I wake up every morning and have the same ambitions that I had a while back.

Let the blockade cease! The United States has no right to ask for or expect anything from us while they maintain the blockade.

Neo-liberalism and globalization and the way they are being implemented today are tantamount to new and sophisticated forms of plundering,

Never has the revolution had so much unity, strength and experience as today,

I do not think that he is a warmonger, ... He is the only one who has dared say that Cuba has done something good.

I am going to tell you what I think about this famous commission.

I am talking about three days ... It is inevitable.

I feel my belief in sacrifice and struggle getting stronger. I despise the kind of existence that clings to the miserly trifles of comfort and self-interest. I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.

If all roads lead to Rome, we can only wish for thousands of roads to lead to Revolutionary Rome!

Forty-eight hours have passed and we have received no response to our offer. We will wait patiently,

If it takes months, so be it, they will wait it out,

If it weren't for that absurd and ridiculous embargo, the United States could receive vaccinations and other medical procedures from Cuba that could help save American lives.

He went too far in his speech. He was rude. He insulted. He lied, and he threatened.

We can do it better and take on the major leagues. ... For each player that leaves, 10 better ones arise,

There is no country in the world where the empire's mercenaries enjoy the privileges they do in Cuba.

to force us to surrender through hunger and illness ... as part of a monstrous, fascist plan.

Humanity will preserve an emotional memory of the tireless work of His Holiness John Paul II in favor of peace, justice and solidarity among all people,

He is very much a fool. He doesn't know who the Cuban baseball players are, or that they are Olympic and world champions. If he knew, he would know something about this country's government.

I was asked by many citizens whether I was going to respond, ... We are all going to respond!

I think that it has moved the world. It's something extraordinary, something historic.

I repeat my warmest congratulations and the desire to continue strengthening the existing relations between our two parties, governments and peoples,

Our relations are based on mutual interest and devotion to peace, in the context of cooperation and integration.

Little Elian will get back his country, his family, his school, his schoolmates, his school desk,

I think only God can punish crimes of such magnitude.

We are the rebels of the West, ... And Malaysia is the rebel of the East.

We aren't afraid of anything. It's very difficult to compete against us in any area ... not even in baseball do they want to compete with Cuba.

We are not here to say goodbye to Che and his comrades. We are here to welcome them. I see Che and his men as a battalion of invincible combatants, who have come to fight alongside us and to write new pages of history and of glory.

to turn it into a body which is truly representative of the interest of all the peoples of the world.

We are mobilizing precisely to thwart the plans of those who don't want the child to return, ... This is not a demonstration against the United States and much less against the American people.

We would never accept it, ... Even if they offered us a billion dollars, we'd refuse it.

there certainly is evidence that both Cuba and Venezuela have been involved in the situation in Bolivia in unhelpful ways.

Why is it that criminal policies and absurd blockades that include food and medicines are being added ... with the purpose of annihilating whole populations out of hunger and diseases?

What kind of cosmetic solutions are we going to provide? ... The very modesty of these goals is shameful.

The government of President Bush knows very well that no government in the world can accept such a perverse insult to its dignity and sovereignty.

translate into an act of aggression against Cuba. But we know that at this time that is not the fundamental thinking of the U.S. government.

You cannot do this without the authorization of the father, ... I sincerely think that this boy is at risk in the hands of desperate people, and the government of the United States should not be running this risk.

We will be there, but I would never have thought I would have to answer that question.

We had to fulfill the promise that we would resist, we would fight and we would win, even if we were left absolutely on our own.

Whatever we get will be used there for the martyrs of Katrina, be it one million (dollars), two, three or four. The money will go there without any doubt and with great satisfaction, because it will heighten the moral of our athletes.

We will wait as many days as necessary.

We will talk and we will help ourselves in a dignified manner in cases of disaster,

When I reached the concrete area, about 15 or 20 meters from the first row of chairs, I did not realize that there was a relatively high curb from the pavement to the crowd. My left foot came down into the air, because of the difference in height. The momentum, and the law of gravity discovered some time ago by Newton, caused me, when I took that false step, to plunge forward until I fell, in a fraction of a second, onto the pavement.

We continue to wait patiently for a response. In the meantime, all of you will be taking intensive courses in immunology and also something that I should be doing -- an intensive brush-up course in English.

There have been nothing but obstacles and difficulties of all kinds,

Could it be that the government of the United States feels hurt that Cuba cooperates with a brother nation? Does that offend the U.S. government ... is it antidemocratic, is it a crime?

Cuba stands by Pakistan in this hour of trial,

Cuba knows no fear and despises deceit; it listens with respect but believes in its ideas; it firmly defends its principles and has nothing to hide from the world,

I send you, the Party, the Government and the Korean people, our most sincere congratulations,

They always advertise it as mixed with something else.

They already turned on the little sign - the cockroaches are brave.

The rude provocations that have been undertaken from its Interests Office in Havana does not, and could not, have any other goal.

It would be a crime not to go to the appeal, ... The passports are ready and of course the airplane is ready.

These doctors could all already be there providing their services,

Thank you for coming to reinforce us in the difficult struggle that we are undergoing today, to preserve the ideas that you fought so hard for.

Thank you Fidel Castro, thank you for existing.

The much publicized dissidence or alleged opposition in Cuba does not exist except in the overheated imagination of the Cuban-American mob and White House and State Department bureaucrats.

Sometimes I have the impression that our debates are unreal. It's as though the United States didn't exist, as though the empire and its hegemony didn't exist.

A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.

You've put me on three times and I keep saying the same thing.

The U.S. should begin the changes before there can be change in Cuba,

This graduation was just a dream nearly seven years ago, ... Today is proof of the capacity of human beings to reach the most lofty goals.

This battle against nature we will also win,

They should put those signs inside, not outside.

also means defying the powerful forces inside and outside our country.

There was illiteracy, the workers were being expelled from the factories, and the best lands where in the hands of the rich. That's why the revolution triumphed.

There will be no escape for those who want to live like parasites at any price, at any cost, outside the law,

This mafia not only operates from Miami. It has set up an organization that operates from Mexico, using remote places for new routes.