Famous quotes by Fidel Castro

Former President Fidel Castro, Cuba's leader for five decades, made many memorable statements about himself and communist ideals.

"Condemn me. It doesn't matter. History will absolve me," Fidel said in 1953, when he was a young lawyer defending himself at the trial for the failed attack he led on the Moncada fortress in Santiago de Cuba province.

Fidel Castro, then Prime Minister of Cuba, smokes a cigar while being interviewed by the press during a visit by US Senator Charles McGovern to Havana in May 1975. Photo: Reuters

"I started the revolution with 82 people. If I had to do it again, I would only do it with 10 or 15 people and absolute faith. It doesn't matter how small you are if you have faith and a plan of action," Fidel said in 1959.

"I don't think about cutting my beard because I'm used to having one, and my beard means a lot to the country. When we fulfill our promise of good governance, I will shave it," Fidel said in a 1959 interview with CBS, 30 days after the revolution that overthrew President Fulgencio Bastita's regime.

"Revolution is not an easy thing. Revolution is a struggle between the future and the past," the Cuban leader said that same year.

"I came to the conclusion a long time ago that the last thing I had to sacrifice for the health of the Cuban people was to quit smoking. I don't really miss it that much," he said in December 1985 when announcing he had quit smoking cigars.

"Imagine what would happen to the world if the socialist community disappeared. I don't believe that's possible," Fidel said in 1989.

"There's nothing strange about it. I wish I had more opportunities to welcome important people like this man," Fidel said in 1994, explaining the lavish, head-of-state reception given to Hugo Chavez when he arrived in Havana after being released from prison for leading the 1992 Venezuelan coup. Five years later, Chavez was elected president of Venezuela and became Castro's closest ally.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visits President Fidel Castro in Havana in August 2006. Photo: Reuters

"One of the biggest benefits of the revolution is that even our prostitutes are college graduates," he told director Oliver Stone in the 2003 documentary "Comandante."

"I realized that my true destiny would be the fight I had to have with America," he said in the opening of director Stone's second documentary about the Cuban leader in 2004.

"This is the conclusion I've reached over the years: of all the mistakes we've made, the biggest mistake was believing that someone actually knew how to build socialism. Whenever they said 'this is the formula,' we thought they knew. It was as if that person were a doctor," he said in 2005.

"I neither want nor accept the positions of Chairman of the State Council and Commander-in-Chief. It would be a betrayal of my conscience to accept a responsibility that demands more than my abilities and dedication," he said in February 2008, announcing his resignation as chairman.

"We are not a developed capitalist country in crisis, with leaders frantically searching for solutions amidst recession, inflation, market shortages, and unemployment. We are, and must be, socialists," Fidel wrote in one of his 2008 articles.

Fidel Castro attended a conference on terrorism in Havana in 2005. Photo: Reuters

"The Cuban model doesn't work for us anymore," he said in 2010 during an interview with American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg. He later stated that this remark had been quoted out of context.

According to VNE