Pol Pot Quotations

The only good bourgeois is a dead bourgeois.

I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people.

I'm quite satisfied on one thing: If we had not carried out our struggle, Cambodia would have become another Kampuchea Krom in 1975.

The sick are victims of their own imagination.

It's up to history to judge.

In Khmer we have a saying that when one is both quite sick and old there remains only one thing, that you die.

If someone is very hungry, the Angkar will take him where he will be stuffed with food.

I came to join the revolution, not to kill the Cambodian people. Look at me now. Am I a violent person? No. So, as far as my conscience and my mission were concerned, there was no problem.

I'm quite modest. I don't want to tell people I'm a leader.

Failing to induce adulation and submissiveness, the Angkar could only generate hatred. If concealment was the ultimate ploy for the leadership, it backfired and whipped up abhorrence in the context of total revolution. This might be one of the explanations why repression assumed proportions unknown in other Communist countries. The mask of Angkar was a good tactic to grab power, but it proved disastrous in government.

If you wish to live exactly as you please, the Angkar will put aside a small piece of land for you.

We want only peace, to build up our country. World opinion is paying great attention to the threat against Democratic Kampuchea. They are anxious. They fear Kampuchea cannot oppose the Vietnamese. This could hurt the interests of the Southeast Asian countries and all of the world's countries.

No gain in keeping, no loss in weeding out.

To kill the grass you must also remove the root

I do not reject responsibility - our movement made mistakes, like every other movement in the world. But there was another aspect that was outside our control - the enemy's activities against us.

The first time I heard of Tuol Sleng, it was on the Voice of America. I listened twice.

The Vietnamese... wanted to assassinate me because they knew without me they could easily swallow up Cambodia.

When I die, my only wish is that Cambodia remain Cambodia and belong to the West. It is over for communism, and I want to stress that.

Whoever wishes to blame or attack me is entitled to do so. I regret I didn't have enough experience to totally control the movement. On the other hand, with our constant struggle, this had to be done together with others in the communist world to stop Kampuchea becoming Vietnamese.

I want you to know that everything I did, I did for my country.

Since he is of no use anymore, there is no gain if he lives and no loss if he dies.

Hunger is the most effective disease.

There's what we did wrong and what we did right. The mistake is that we did some things against the people — by us and also by the enemy — but the other side, as I told you, is that without our struggle there would be no Cambodia right now.

Even now, and you can look at me, am I a savage person? My conscience is clear.

For the other people, the babies, the young ones, I did not order them to be killed. For Son Sen and his family, yes. I feel sorry for that. That was a mistake that occurred when we put our plan into practice. I feel sorry.

If you have a disease of the old society, take a dose of Lenin as medication.

He who protests is an enemy; he who opposes is a corpse.

We will burn the old grass and the new will grow.

Exterminate the 50 million Vietnamese and purify the masses of the [Cambodian] people.

Better to kill an innocent by mistake than spare an enemy by mistake.

I did not join the resistance movement to kill people, to kill the nation. Look at me now. Am I a savage person? My conscience is clear.