João Goulart

"I won't trade one Brazilian worker for a hundred of these tidy little grandfins."

"The image projected in Veja Magazine about my life in exile, presenting me as a rich landlord, oblivious to the problems of the homeland, does not reflect reality."

"It is regrettable that still large parts of the population that have had access to higher education remain insensitive to the national reality."

""...I will only return to my country through the front door, democratically. My duty, my right is to remain quiet, one day History judges me”"

""...the major objective of Brazilian society is the strengthening of peace. We believe that the ideological conflict between West and East cannot and should not be solved militarily, because if in a nuclear war we saved our lives, we would not be able to save, whether we won or were won, our reason for living"."

""What threatens democracy is hunger, it is misery, it is the disease of those who have no resources to face it. These are the evils that can threaten democracy, but never the people in the public square in the use of their legitimate and democratic rights"."

"the American will overthrow me by phone if he wants to."

"I could not commit the levity of allowing Brazil to be divided."

"...Fate itself reserved the Presidency for me after the events that are still in the memory of all of us. They were strange events to the will of the people, also strange to my will, because I wasn't even in Brazilian territory, which reserved to me the responsibility of directing the destiny of our homeland. But I assumed the position with humility, asking all the living forces of the country, the men of production and the men of work, those in the cities and in the countryside, to help me overcome the serious difficulties I would have to face..."

"...Our motto, Brazilian workers, is progress with justice, and development with equality..."

"Agrarian reform is not the whim of a government or the program of a party. It is the product of the pressing need of all the peoples of the world..."

"It is, therefore, understandable that it deeply displeases the conscience of the Brazilian people any form of intervention in an American State, inspired by the allegation of incompatibility with its political regime, to impose on it the practice of the representative system by external coercive means, which take away its democratic character and validity."

"How long could we hold out? Where would we get the resources and fuel we needed? The handovers in Brazil were already guaranteed to receive the support of the United States. Only the civilians would be the big victims. And these are wonderful people, regardless of their political conviction. I would not have this right. Nor would I want to take on this enormous responsibility, which goes against my personal convictions."

"The government recognizes the mistakes of the past and apologizes to a man who defended the nation and its people whom we could never have forgiven."

"The national memory is treated as garbage."

"It is my duty to state in a solemn declaration to History that I have never been insinuated with any movement or tendency to hurt the law or the institutions. I have always heard categorical statements from the President that he would be an uncompromising defender of legality and democratic institutions. [...] I could never defend a government committed to communism."

"There goes my Buddha with his indecipherable thoughts."

"In what he says he will be representing me. You can trust him, as if I were myself."