In the words of Fidel Castro

No street in Cuba bears his name. Nor is there a single statue of Fidel Castro in his honour. But he sailed from Mexico in 1957 to overthrow the US-backed Batista regime with just 82 people and managed to achieve it after a two-year war. While Cuba remains poor, it has ensured free education and healthcare to its citizens and thereby first world-level literacy and life expectancy. Here follow some of his best known quotes.

“One of the greatest benefits of the revolution is that even our prostitutes are college graduates.”

“They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?”

“Nothing in the world is irreversible, not even capitalism.”

“We are not politicians. We made our revolution to get the politicians out.”

“The ever more sophisticated weapons piling up in the arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest can kill the illiterate, the ill, the poor and the hungry, but they cannot kill ignorance, illness, poverty or hunger.”

“...quality of life lies in knowledge, in culture. Values are what constitute true quality of life, the supreme quality of life, even above food, shelter and clothing.”

“We have the lowest student-teacher ratio and spend five times as much on schools than war - the opposite of what the United States does. [explaining why Cuba has the highest literacy in the world]”

“The ever more sophisticated weapons piling up in the arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest can kill the illiterate, the ill, the poor and the hungry, but they cannot kill ignorance, illness, poverty or hunger.”