Colombia Quotes

A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation.

Our vengeance shall rival Spanish ferocity. Our goodwill is at last exhausted; and, since our oppressors compel us to mortal warfare, they shall disappear from America and our land shall be purged of the monsters that infest it. Our hate shall be inexorable and our war shall be to the death.

The Spaniards have served us with rapine and death. They have violated the sacred rights of human beings, violated capitulations and the most solemn treaties; committed, in fact, every crime. They have reduced the Republic of Venezuela to the most frightful desolation. Thus, then, justice demands vengeance and necessity obliges us to take it

The whole basis for the US intervention in Colombia is outrageously racist and arrogant.

If you call Escobar to trial, you can be sure that all the members of your family tree—ancestors and offspring—will be eliminated. We are capable of executing you anywhere on this planet. There is no place you can hide.

The idea that Hillary Clinton wants to do to Central America what her husband did to Colombia is troubling.

Everyone has a price, the important thing is to find out that price

Without delay and without exception, you will put to the sword every Spaniard in dungeon or hospital …

The ALAS Foundation was born as a consequence and a continuation of what we are doing with Pies Descalzos. I started the Pies Descalzos foundation in Colombia when I was 18, and since then, I have been very involved in the crusade for education.

One less of such monsters in existence is one less who has slaughtered or would slaughter hundreds of victims

People in the U.K. don't imagine what it is to live in extreme poverty here in Colombia or anywhere in the so-called Third World.

All empires are created of blood and fire.

We in Colombia always hope for Venezuela to prosper.

Federalism, though it may be the most perfect [system] and the most capable of bringing happiness to human society, is nevertheless the most detrimental to the interests of our infant countries. Generally speaking our citizens are not yet able to exercise their rights fully and for themselves, because they lack the political virtues that charecterise true republics

After Plan Colombia came the Colombian Free Trade Agreement. Hillary Clinton opposed the treaty when she was running against Barack Obama in 2008 but then supported it as secretary of state.

In Colombia, we have a lot of passion.

The hatred that the Peninsula has inspired in us is greater than the ocean between us. It would be easier to have the two continents meet than to reconcile the spirits of the two countries. The habit of obedience; a community of interest, of understanding, of religion; mutual goodwill; a tender regard for the birthplace and good name of our forefathers; in short, all that gave rise to our hopes, came to us from Spain

Free trade with Colombia is something that's a no-brainer.

16,000,000 Americans either defend their rights or suffer repression at the hands of Spain, which, although once the world's greatest empire, is now too weak, with what little is left her, to rule the new hemisphere or even to maintain herself in the old. And shall Europe, the civilized, the merchant, the lover of liberty allow an aged serpent, bent only on satisfying its venomous rage, devour the fairest part of our globe? What! Is Europe deaf to the clamor of her own interests? Has she no eyes to see justice?

During [Simon] Bolivar’s own lifetime, his role changed dramatically, as Bolivar transformed from an anti-colonial populist to a dictator.

I am overwhelmed by confusion and trepidation…. I have no talent for making laws

Colombia is potentially a very wealthy country. It has tremendous resources, but its wealth is highly concentrated. Most of the population lives in misery, which has led to violent confrontation throughout the century.

If poverty was an easy problem to solve, it would have been solved a long time ago.

The Americans, in the Spanish system now in place, perhaps more so than ever before, have no other place in society than that of simple consumers; even in this they are burdened with shocking restrictions, such as a ban on the cultivation of European fruit, with control of these products monopolised by the king, a prohibition on factories which not even the peninsula possesses, exclusive commercial privileges even over basic needs, and customs bans between American provinces so that they cannot trade, understand each other or negotiate

Sometimes I am God, if I say a man dies, he dies that same day.