“There is nothing more agreeable than having a place where one can throw on the floor as many cigar butts as one pleases without the subconscious fear of a maid who is waiting like a sentinel to place an ashtray where the ashes are going to fall.”

I promise all Cuban mothers that I will never will make them weep.

There is no more democratic government than a revolutionary government.

It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and a plan of action.

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

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

We must establish a new world order based on justice, on equity, and on peace.

Forgive me for using the term ‘fat little brother’. It is not a criticism, rather a suggestion that he do some exercises and go on a diet, don’t you think? I’m doing this for the gentleman’s health.

The first thing dictators do is finish free press, to establish censorship. There is no doubt that a free press is the first enemy of dictatorship.

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

The revolution has no time for elections. There is no more democratic government in Latin America than the revolutionary government.

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

Warfare is a means and not an end. Warfare is a tool of revolutionaries. The important thing is the revolution. The important thing is the revolutionary cause, revolutionary ideas, revolutionary objectives, revolutionary sentiments, revolutionary virtues!

Democracy’s my idea. I do not agree with communists, my acts prove. Free press in Cuba – free ideas, freedom religion belief.

I can assure you that my first and foremost interest is my country. This is not a personal matter. We are not people driven by a wish to be in the government since it is for us the least attractive work, even though we are politicians.

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.

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

I read every agreement of every contract. Anything I put my signature on, I really do read them. And I find things.

Our differences are policies; our agreements, principles.

Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.

Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.

I think the word of the United States has been as good as gold in its international dealings and its agreements.

Whatever you perceive, you always make a story with yourself as the main character, and that dictates your life. Then when you read ‘The Four Agreements’, you hear another voice beneath the story, the voice that comes from your integrity, your spirit.

Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did.

Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.