Fidel Castro quotes

Fidel Castro was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister and later President of Cuba. A key figure in the Cuban Revolution, his leadership transformed the country into a one-party socialist state. He became internationally recognized for his defiance of U.S. policies and for shaping Cuban society for decades. Here are 119 of his quotes:

This country ... abounds in that Cuba is a heaven in the spiritual sense of the word, and we prefer to die in heaven than serve in hell.

Fidel Castro

Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.

Fidel Castro

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

Fidel Castro

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

Fidel Castro

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

Fidel Castro

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

Fidel Castro

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

Fidel Castro

As I have said before, the ever more sophisticated weapons piling up in the arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest can kill the illiterate, the ill, the poor and the hungry, but they cannot kill ignorance, illness, poverty or hunger.

Fidel Castro

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.

Fidel Castro

Fellow workers and peasants, this is the socialist and democratic revolution of the working people, with the working people, and for the working people. And for this revolution of the working people, by the working people, and for the working people we are prepared to give our lives.

Fidel Castro

I am not a dictator, and I do not think I will become one. I will not maintain power with a machine gun.

Fidel Castro

I propose the immediate launching of a nuclear strike on the United States. The Cuban people are prepared to sacrifice themselves for the cause of the destruction of imperialism and the victory of world revolution.

Fidel Castro

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

Fidel Castro

If we had paused to tell the people that we were Marxist-Leninists while we were on Pico Turquino and not yet strong, it is possible that we would never have been able to descend to the plains.

Fidel Castro

I am not a communist and neither is the revolutionary movement, but we do not have to say that we are anticommunists just to fawn on foreign powers.

Fidel Castro

I never perceived a contradiction in the political revolutionary field between the ideas I maintained and the idea of that symbol, that extraordinary figure who had been so familiar to me since I began to reason.

Fidel Castro

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

Fidel Castro

It is a fundamental principle of criminal law that an imputed offense must correspond exactly to the type of crime described by law. If no law applies exactly to the point in question, then there can be no offense.

Fidel Castro

In other words: Within the revolution, everything; against the revolution, nothing. Against the revolution, nothing, because the revolution also has its rights, and the first right of the revolution is the right to exist, and no one can oppose the revolution's right to exist. Inasmuch as the revolution embodies the interests of the people, inasmuch as the revolution symbolizes the interests of the whole naion, no one can justly claim a right to oppose it.

Fidel Castro

Soon, I'll be like all the others. The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban Communists will remain as proof on this planet that if they are worked at with fervor and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need, and we need to fight without a truce to obtain them.

Fidel Castro

Human rights are very often spoken of, but we must also speak of humanity's rights. Why should some people go barefoot that others may travel in expensive cars? Why should some live only 35 years that others may live 70? Why should some be miserably poor that others may be exaggeratedly rich? I speak on behalf of the children of the world who do not even have a piece of bread. I speak on behalf of the sick who lack medicine. I speak to you on behalf of those who have been denied the right to life and human dignity.

Fidel Castro

...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.

Fidel Castro