Hugo Chavez quotes:

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 It's totally outdated; they don't have arguments; they don't have any sense.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 think developed countries - so-called developed countries - should reflect upon the way of living and the waste of energy.

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.

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.

The United States is like Count Dracula who at six o'clock in the morning has not sucked [any necks].

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Even socialist dictators have an interest in gorgeous supermodels.

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

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.

This has been a great victory for the Venezuelan people.

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.

There is no turning back.

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

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.

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

Racism is very characteristic of imperialism and capitalism. Hate against me has a lot to do with racism. Because of my big mouth and curly hair. And I'm so proud to have this mouth and this hair, because it is African.

We shall remember Gaddafi our whole lives as a great fighter, a revolutionary and a martyr.

I do wish that the IMF and the World Bank would disappear soon.

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.

Long live the Unity of Latin America.

Latin Americans have gotten tired of the Washington consensus - a neoliberalism that has aggravated misery and poverty.

Israel has gone mad. It's attacking, doing the same thing to the Palestinian and Lebanese people that they have criticised - and with reason - the Holocaust . But this is a new Holocaust.

The descendants of those who crucified Christ... have taken ownership of the riches of the world, a minority has taken ownership of the gold of the world, the silver, the minerals, water, the good lands, petrol, well, the riches, and they have concentrated the riches in a small number of hands.

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

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.

Privatization is a neoliberal and imperialist plan. Health can't be privatized because it is a fundamental human right, nor can education, water, electricity and other public services. They can't be surrendered to private capital that denies the people from their rights.

It makes one sad to see the sell-out of President Fox, really it makes one sad. How sad that the president of a people like the Mexicans lets himself become the puppy dog of the empire.

Fascists are not human. A snake is more human.

Capitalism is the way of the devil and exploitation. If you really want to look at things through the eyes of Jesus Christ -- who I think was the first socialist -- only socialism can really create a genuine society.

Venezuela has changed forever.

If the United States was mad enough to attack Iran or aggress Venezuela again the price of a barrel of oil could reach $150 or even $200.

Venezuela has the biggest oil reserves in the world. And the biggest gas reserves in this hemisphere, the eighth in the world. Venezuela was a U.S. oil colony. All of our oil was going up to the north, and the gas was being used by the U.S. and not by us. Now we are diversifying. Our oil is helping the poor.

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.

I would like to invite the citizens of Great Britain and the citizens of the U.S. and the citizens of the world to come here and walk freely through the streets of Venezuela, to talk to anyone they want, to watch television, to read the papers. We are building a true democracy, with human rights for everyone, social rights, education, health care, pensions, social security, and jobs.

The ones who close the path for peacefull revolution, at the same time open the path for violent revolution.

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.

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

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

But Cuba doesn't have a dictatorship it's a revolutionary democracy.

Democracy is impossible in a capitalist system. Capitalism is the realm of injustice and a tyranny of the richest against the poorest.

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

Down with the U.S. empire! It must be said, in the entire world: Down with the empire!

Everyday I become more convinced, there is no doubt in my mind, as many intellectuals have said, that it is necessary to transcend capitalism. But capitalism can not be transcended through capitalism itself; it must be done through socialism, true socialism, with equality and justice. I'm also convinced that it is possible to do it under democracy, but not in the type of democracy being imposed by Washington.

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.

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

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

I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet,

I haven't any thirst for revenge.

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

I nationalize strategic companies and get criticized, but when Bush does it, it's OK. ... Bush is turning socialist. How are you, comrade Bush?

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

If the climate were a bank, they would already have saved it.

If you get up at three in the morning to go to the bathroom, man, why you have to turn on that little light? Put the torch there on the nightstand.

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

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

I'm not loved by Hillary Clinton... and I don't love her either.

Israel criticizes Hitler a lot, so do we, but they've done something very similar, even worse, than what the Nazis did.

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.

Let the dogs of the empire bark, that's their job; ours is to battle to achieve the true liberation of our people.

Let's save the human race, let's finish off the U.S. empire,

Mr. Bush is an illegitimate President. In Florida, his brother Jeb deleted many black voters from the electoral registers. So this President is the result of a fraud.

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.

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!

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.

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.

The grand destroyer of the world, and the greatest threat ... is represented by U.S. imperialism.

The imperialist, genocidal, fascist attitude of the U.S. president has no limits. I think Hitler would be like a suckling baby next to George W. Bush,

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.

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

To paraphrase Karl Marx, the great Karl Marx, a specter is haunting the streets of Copenhagen...Capitalism is the specter, almost nobody wants to mention it...Socialism, the other specter Karl Marx spoke about, which walks here too, rather it is like a counter-specter. Socialism, this is the direction, this is the path to save the planet, I don't have the least doubt. Capitalism is the road to hell, to the destruction of the world.

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

We also exchange oil for software technology. Uruguay is one of the biggest producers of software. We are breaking with the neoliberal model. We do not believe in free trade. We believe in fair trade and exchange, not competition but cooperation. I'm not giving away oil for free. Just using oil, first to benefit our people, to relieve poverty.

We have to re-invent socialism. It can't be the kind of socialism that we saw in the Soviet Union, but it will emerge as we develop new systems that are built on cooperation, not competition,

What hurts me most is poverty, and that's what led me to become a rebel.

What they have implanted here, which is really a 'gringo' custom, is terrorism. They disguise children as witches and wizards, that is contrary to our culture.

What would happen if we financed somebody in the U.S. to destabilize the government of George W. Bush? They would go to prison, certainly.

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

When imperialism feels weak, it resorts to brute force.