Hugo Chavez Quotations

I think developed countries - so-called developed countries - should reflect upon the way of living and the waste of energy.

I wish we could begin a new period of normal relations with the government of the United States.

I shook Obama's hand and I said, 'I want to be your friend.' My hand is still outstretched. I am not Obama's enemy, but it's difficult not see imperialism in Washington. Those who don't see it don't want to see it, like the ostrich.

I'm a man with many defects. I love. I sing. I dream. I was born in the poor countryside. I was raised in the countryside, planting corn and selling sweets made by my grandmother. My children, my two daughters are with me and I want a better world for my grandchildren, for your grandchildren.

The only way to save the world is through socialism, but a socialism that exists within a democracy; there's no dictatorship here.

We're not perfect, but we do have democracy.

I think the United States and the secretary of State should be concerned about the poverty in this country - people without health insurance. The United States should stop being the empire and be concerned about other countries. You've got to be more worried about your own people.

Oil is a very valuable resource for life - electric heaters. We must have to transition ourselves to a post-oil era. And that's what we must discuss: searching and developing new sources of energy. And that requires scientific research. That requires investment. And the developed countries must be the ones to assume this responsibility first.

I have said it already, I am convinced that the way to build a new and better world is not capitalism. Capitalism leads us straight to hell.

One of the greatest rebels, who I really admire: Christ. He was a rebel. He ended up being crucified. He was a great rebel. He rebelled against the established power that subjugated.

The left is back, and it's the only path we have to get out of the spot to which the right has sunken us. Socialism builds and capitalism destroys.

Mutual respect! That's what it takes to be friends.

I became a soldier, not because I had a military vocation initially, but because it was the only way that that young, poor-class child from the provinces could go to the center of the country: through baseball, which was my dream.

I love Jesus Christ. I am a Christian... I cry when I see injustice, children dying of hunger.

I was a farm kid from the plains of South Venezuela, from a very poor family. I grew up in a palm tree house with an earthen floor.

We want to be brothers and sisters. We want respect and equality. Simon Bolivar, our father, said a balanced world - a universe - a balanced universe in order to have peace and development.

Venezuela is a free country, and we will not be blackmailed by anyone. We will not accept being told what to do over Iran; we will not accept being anyone's colony.

We must reduce all the emissions that are destroying the planet. However, that requires a change in lifestyle, a change in the economic model: We must go from capitalism to socialism.

Noam Chomsky has a book, which I read for the first time when I was in Spain, called 'Fear of Democracy'. There is your answer. Fear of democracy. In Honduras, they had a sham democracy. It was run by elites, what was called a liberal democracy, but in reality was a false democracy.

The world needs a true leader, an Obama that promotes peace and understanding in the world.

Our policy is to deepen the relations with all the countries in the world - monarchies, kingdoms, large powers - we want to respect all differences and have our relationships based on mutual respect.

We must confront the privileged elite who have destroyed a large part of the world.

We must reduce the emissions 100 percent. In Venezuela, the emissions are currently insignificant compared to the emissions of the developed countries.

I'm a Christian. I want the world of justice and equality. This is the only way to achieve peace.

I am convinced that the path to a new, better and possible world is not capitalism, the path is socialism.

Even socialist dictators have an interest in gorgeous supermodels.

I hereby accuse the North American empire of being the biggest menace to our planet.

An infernal machine that produces every minute an impressive amount of poor, 26 million poor in 10 years are 2.6 million per year of new poor, this is the road, well, the road to hell.

No part of the human community can live entirely on its own planet, with its own laws of motion and cut off from the rest of humanity.

Convinced as I am and as I am from my government that the world needs a new moral architecture over all I believe that this should be the first topic to debate in our world of today, ethics, moral.

They do not walk in... the path of Christ.

It's a lie! I am not an anti-Semite. The World Jewish Congress supported me and said that I am not anti-Semitic.

I remember. How many minutes do I have left President? About one, one minute.

I wish Obama would focus on governing the United States and would forget his country's imperialist pretensions.

I am a President held prisoner, that I haven't resigned and I will not resign.

I was an altar boy. My mother wanted me to be a priest. I am very Christian and Catholic. ... I'm very faithful. I believe in God, in Jesus Christ.

This has been a great victory for the Venezuelan people.

Most governments in the United States in a hundred years have not respected the peoples of Latin America. They have sponsored coup d'etats, assassinations.

The problem is not the oil, but what they do with the oil. The United States is the biggest spender of oil and of all the planet resources.

In the United States, the government is bailing out banks, intervening in the economy, yet in Latin America, the Right continues to talk about 'free markets.' It's totally outdated; they don't have arguments; they don't have any sense.

I painted. I wanted to be a painter. I sang.

What a great truth and how good it is that in Mar del Plata President Kirchner has come to say it to millions: the Washington consensus is broken; we are looking for a new model,

We're going to build that gas pipeline, ... to all of South America for the next 200 years.

Venezuelan interests are to be defended by Venezuela. The U.S. should defend the interests of the U.S. Where are the U.S. people, where are the intellectuals, who could put limits on their government?

Venezuela is used to defending itself ... and fighting imperialism,

We have never had such an intense, frank and profound debate in the past seven years,

We are all going to read Quixote to feed our spirit with this fighter who came out to get rid of injustice and fix the world, ... To some degree, we are followers of Quixote.

The only place where a person can ask for another head of state to be assassinated is the United States, which is what happened recently with the Reverend Pat Robertson, a very close friend of the White House, ... He publicly asked for my assassination and he's still walking the streets.

Some might still think that Fidel Castro is guiding this revolution. We like Fidel very much but the ideological leader is Simon Bolivar,

Now the US government has taken a decision in favor of Posada ...that's what I call imperialistic cynicism,

Nuclear energy is for peaceful purposes. We are not the ones developing atomic bombs, it's others who do that. We are not the ones who launch atomic bombs,

If we have to choose between environment and mining, we will leave the gold and we will keep the water and the air.

celebrated by waving flags, dancing in traditional dress and wearing berets commemorating Ernesto 'Che' Guevara.

We can do whatever we want with the planes. Maybe we'll send 10 to Cuba, or maybe to China so that they can see the technology. I say with whatever country that can use them,

kingdom of equality, freedom and peace being based on justice.

I think the president of the United States spoke for twenty minutes here yesterday. I would ask your indulgence to let me finish my statement.

Please - let's not talk about Chavez any more! He is in every conversation in Venezuela, and I am sick of it!

We have suffered from this tragedy as though we were from Martinique, as though we were French, ... I pray that this tragedy ... on Venezuelan soil helps us reinforce our unity ... We are all Caribbean.

Yesterday was very interesting, ... Some defended free trade, while we proposed various alternatives beyond the mirages of a free trade agreement.

Well we can try to measure democracy, just as you measure temperature with a thermometer, or pressure with a barometer.

We're at the doorway of major energy crisis worldwide,

Under those circumstances we decided to make a clean break with those accords, and we are reviewing them,

Under the present circumstances, it will take at least 200 years.

to all of South America for the next 200 years.

What is the U.S. government looking for? And the elite governing this country? They're looking for oil.

we should continue with this process, whose only queen is equality

We are very saddened by this tragedy, ... turned off.

We have detected with intelligence reports plans of a supposed invasion, one that would never happen. But we have to denounce it,

Dr. King spoke about about the road towards the palace of justice, and that made me remember of Bolivar, who said that justice must be the queen of all virtues,

The United States brought the attacks upon itself, for their arrogant imperialist foreign policy,

It would start, as they say in my village, is worse the remedy than the disease.

South America has changed. A worker is president of Brazil - there comes Lula; an Indian is president of Bolivia; a woman is president of Chile, and in Venezuela, a revolutionary soldier, which is what I am.

Your triumph is the triumph of all of Venezuela,

The U.S. people have a major role to play to solve, to save this planet.

They've called me a new Mussolini or Fidel Castro or said I sleep with a book by Hitler for a pillow. But the people know the truth. They know who I really am.

There isn't a debate, there is no dialogue. It seems to be a dialogue of the deaf.

The birth has occurred. A new republic has been born.

Cindy, we are with you in your fight ... she told me that in Easter she's going put up her tent again in front of the ranch of Mr. Danger.

I concern myself with Venezuela. However, some rightwing movements are transforming me into a pawn in the domestic politics of their countries, by making statements that are groundless.

Uruguay is one of the biggest producers of software. We are breaking with the neoliberal model. We do not believe in free trade.

I'm not giving away oil for free. Just using oil, first to benefit our people, to relieve poverty.

What you want is one thing, and what you cannot really obtain is another.

For a hundred years we have been one of the largest oil-producing countries in the world but with a 60 percent poverty rate and now we are canceling the historical debt.

Every factory must be a school to educate, like Che Guevara said, to produce not only briquettes, steel, and aluminum, but also, above all, the new man and woman, the new society, the socialist society.

It doesn't smell of sulphur any more. No, it smells of something else. It smells of hope, and you have to have hope in your heart.

Knowing English is important, but for us Venezuelans I think it would also be important to know Portuguese . For that reason, we should evaluate the possibility of it being taught in our schools.

Don’t let yourselves be poisoned by those wandering Jews.

The world should forget about cheap oil. [The price] will keep going up and some day arrive at US$100 per barrel.

That man, the king of vacations... the king of vacations in his ranch said nothing but: "You have to flee." and didn't say how... that cowboy, the cowboy mentality.

I don't want to die. Please don't let me die.

Venezuela has changed forever.

For us Catholics, John Paul II will be remembered as a traveling Pope ... and we should also remember he preached world peace. When the United States invaded Iraq, for example, John Paul II said it was an illegal and immoral act.

I love books. If they are good books, I love them even more. But even if they are bad books, I still love them.

Some people point to me as the cause of all society's problems, others as if I am the benefactor, responsible for everything good, but I am neither the former nor the latter. I am but a man in particular circumstances, and the most beautiful part is that an individual human life is capable of contributing to the growth, the awakening of the collective strength. That is what matters!

The Devil is right at home. The Devil, the Devil himself, is right in the house. And the Devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the Devil came here. Right here. And it smells of sulphur still today. Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the Devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.

There is no turning back.

Peoples of the Americas are rising once again, saying no to imperialism, saying no to fascism, saying no to intervention - and saying no to death.

I haven't any thirst for revenge.

The revolution will survive. It does not rely solely on oil for its survival. There is a national will, there is a national idea, a national project.

I'm a reading addict. I can't live without it, like someone who is addicted to drugs.