Great Throughts Treasury

"It was [Castro] trying to drive home the point that electricity was how his country was going to beat the fuel crisis,"

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

"It's important that our people know that they (the U.S. mission) aren't here just to give out visas but rather to wage war, to openly conspire against Cuba, openly and without hiding it."

"It's nonsense, absolute nonsense, that the United States refuses to have a drug interdiction agreement for fear of the raving and ranting of a group of people in Miami, even though we're willing to do it in exchange for nothing,"

"It was obvious that they underestimated our people who have not rested a single day in fighting for something absolutely just,"

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

"Niemeyer and I are the last communists on this planet."

"No government can sell its nation on the backs of its people."

"Let us yield a bit. Let us grant socialism a few more years. Socialism is so obsolete, it is dying by itself.... Did I say socialism? I assure you on my honor this was not a mental slip. This was a slip of the tongue. Do not forget that. Capitalism — and I say it with such gusto — capitalism is so obsolete that it is dying by itself."

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

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

"Let's hope that, in Cuba's case, God does not 'instruct' Mr. Bush to attack our country but that he rather inspires him to avoid this colossal mistake!"

"Meanwhile, the memory of U.S. presidential complicity in assassination plots is very nearly dead. There have been no references, post the Robertson initiative, to the old Special Group ... on the desirability of not spreading knowledge of covert operations any wider than absolutely necessary, if we are to preserve the principal of deniability."

"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."

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

"Not even Dante could have described the hell he (Elian) has been through,"

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

"Not a single drop of blood has ever fallen anywhere in the world because of any terrorist act introduced from our country."

"One of the greatest benefits of the revolution is that even our prostitutes are college graduates."

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

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

"On behalf of the children, of all the companions there, he sends a special greeting to all our people,"

"On Thursday, before the United States Congress, the idea was designed of a world military dictatorship under the exclusive rule of force, irrespective of any international laws or institutions."

"Put an end to the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people that is taking place while the world stares in amazement."

"Quality of life lies in knowledge, in culture. Values are what constitute true quality of life, the supreme quality of life, even above food, shelter and clothing."

"Rebuild the Cuban revolution."

"Revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past."

"The current US administration has utterly failed in its efforts to isolate and stifle Cuba economically. But it does not accept this failure, and grows dangerously desperate."

"Sorry, I'm still a dialectical materialist."

"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."

"The Cold War is over, but the arms race goes on and nuclear and military hegemonism perpetuate themselves. How long shall we wait for the total removal of all weapons of mass extermination... in international relations?"

"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."

"That's a hard lesson for those whose false pride and erroneous concepts have driven them not to respond, even late, to our offer,"

"The Alliance for Progress is an alliance between one millionaire and many beggars."

"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."

"The Kremlin should launch a pre-emptive strike against the US."

"The leading symbol of the hagiography of US mercantilism."

"The memory, the spirit, and the unforgettable presence of Che are presiding over this Fifth Party Congress."

"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."

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

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

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

"The existing world economic order constitutes a system of plundering and exploitation like no other in history."

"The first victims of whatever military actions are undertaken will be the billions of people living in the poor and underdeveloped world with their unbelievable economic and social problems,"

"The risk that the tribunal could decide that the boy has the right to ask for political asylum in the United States is real,"

"The solutions put forth by imperialism are the quintessence of simplicity...When they speak of the problems of population and birth, they are in no way moved by concepts related to the interests of the family or of society...Just when science and technology are making incredible advances in all fields, they resort to technology to suppress revolutions and ask the help of science to prevent population growth. In short, the peoples are not to make revolutions, and women are not to give birth. This sums up the philosophy of imperialism."

"The selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this globalized and expansive empire is — and I mean this seriously — the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been."

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

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

"The truth does not need to advertise."