Fidel Castro was the father of Communist Cuba, the first Communist country in the Western Hemisphere.
Castro, who led the armed Cuban revolution along with Che Geuvara to over throw the Batista dictatorship, was the world’s third longest-serving head of the state.
Castro also holds the record for the longest-speech ever delivered to the United Nations: 4 hours and 29 minutes.
As the revolutionary who survived more than 600 assassination attempts passed away on Saturday, here are some of his memorable quotes:
“The revolution is a dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters”
“I’m not attached to anything.I’m attached to what it feels it’s my duty, to do my duty.I think that I will die with the boots on.”
“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.”
“There is often talk of human rights, but it is also necessary to talk of the rights of humanity. Why should some people walk barefoot, so that others can travel in luxurious cars? Why should some live for thirty-five years, so that others can live for seventy years? Why should some be miserably poor, so that others can be hugely rich? I speak on behalf of the children in the world who do not have a piece of bread. I speak on the behalf of the sick who have no medicine, of those whose rights to life and human dignity have been denied.”
“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.”
“Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away.”
“Men do not shape destiny, Destiny produces the man for the hour.”
“I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating… because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition.”
“Nothing in the world is irreversible, not even capitalism.”
“A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.”
