Heads Of State

"Obviously, I'll dismiss him."

"After a bitter three-year civil war initiated in 1936 by a group of army officers and supported by the parties of the National Front, General Francisco Franco established himself as dictator, the beneficiary not only of German and Italian intervention but also of the debilitating 'civil war within the civil war' between the various factions of the Left. The transition in Portugal was similar, though smoother. There, the army seized power in 1926; six years later the finance minister Antonio de Oliveira Salazar became premier, promulgating an authoritarian constitution which established him as dictator the following year."

"Conservative or rightist extremist movements have arisen at different periods in modern history, ranging from the Horthyites in Hungary, the Christian Social Party of Dollfuss in Austria, Der Stahlhelm and other nationalists in pre-Hitler Germany, and Salazar in Portugal, to the pre-1966 Gaullist movements and the monarchists in contemporary France and Italy. The right extremists are conservative, not revolutionary. They seek to change political institutions in order to preserve or restore cultural and economic ones, while extremists of the centre and left seek to use political means for cultural and social revolution. The ideal of the right extremist is not a totalitarian ruler, but a monarch, or a traditionalist who acts like one. Many such movements in Spain, Austria, Hungary, Germany, and Italy have been explicitly monarchist. The supporters of these movements differ from those of the centrists, tending to be wealthier, and more religious, which is more important in terms of a potential for mass support."

"No one has to thank me for accepting the burden, because it is so big sacrifice for me to please or I would not do for kindness to anyone. I do this to for my country, as a duty of conscience, coldly, calmly completed."

"Salazar's essential principles aim at the restoration of a code of justice and morality in the State based on Christianity and transcending the rights of the State. In short, the constant subordination of private interests to the interests of the nation as a whole is for him no platitude, but a living maxim."

"Those who can, must obey."

"Fascism is a deformity of capitalism. It heightens the imperialist tendency towards domination which is inherent in capitalism, and it safeguards the principle of private property. At the same time, fascism immeasurably strengthens the institutional racism already bred by capitalism, whether it be against Jews (as in Hitler’s case) or against African peoples (as in the ideology of Portugal’s Salazar and the leaders of South Africa). Fascism reverses the political gains of the bourgeois democratic system such as free elections, , parliaments; and it also extolls authoritarianism and the reactionary union of the church with the state. In Portugal and Spain, it was the Catholic church—in South Africa, it was the Dutch Reformed church."

"M. Salazar and his colleagues have virtually the solid backing of their fellow-countrymen behind them. The two opposing minorities are, on the Right, some of the younger university people who would like a government that would think more of national prestige and who criticize the existing régime for the modesty of its pretensions. On the Left, the Freemasons and the anti-clericals have not laid down their arms. But against the triumphant success, material and moral, of Oliveira Salazar's rule, the opposition makes but a feeble and ineffective display. It is a dictatorship that has secured its hold on the country without recourse to force, by no other means than the straightforward honesty of its methods, and by the prosperity, the real prosperity and activity which it succeeded in imparting to Portugal at the very time when all the other nations of the world were complaining of the severity of the crisis. It was the most upright, the wisest and the most moderate in Europe, and, at the same time, one of the strongest and one of the most persevering in pursuing the practical application of its principles."

"State is the nation socially organized."

"The discussions have revealed the mistake, but not explained the problem, since even if you know what you will understand it for democracy."

"Teach your sons to work, teach your daughters modesty, teach all the virtue of economy. And if not make them saints, at least make them Christians."

"Who is not patriotic can not be considered Portuguese."

"The United Nations is useless...and also harmful. It is a land that flowers demagoguery with a bunch of newborn countries, devoid of any tradition."

"Definitely, decisively, the Nation, for us...and even for them."

"Do not discuss God and his reason, does not discuss the motherland and the nation."

"All for the nation, nothing against the nation."

"Proudly alone!"

"The day I leave the power, inside my pockets will only be dust."

"I have the grace of providence to be poor."

"In politics, what appears is."

"I know what I want, and where to go."

"Do not discuss God and virtue. Do not discuss the homeland and its history. Do not discuss the authority and prestige. Do not discuss the family and its moral. Not discuss the glory of work and their duty."

"Half a dozen slaps the time."

"To Angola, quickly and with strength!"

"Portugal was born in the shadow of the Catholic Church and religion, from the beginning it was the formative element of the soul of the nation and the dominant trait of character of the Portuguese people."

"God, Homeland, Family."

"Seeing the Republic of China on the verge of death, I am moving ahead with tears in my eyes. There is only one road ahead, but it is torturous. Don’t fear. The road has been blazed with blood by our revolutionary forefathers. We must move forward today – forward, never retreat. Around us is darkness; ahead of us are dangers. With a ray of hope and my allegiance to Dr. Sun Yat-sen, I will continue my struggle without fail."

"If when I die, I am still a dictator, I will certainly go down into the oblivion of all dictators. If, on the other hand, I succeed in establishing a truly stable foundation for a democratic government, I will live forever in every home in China."

"We have...repeatedly declared that we were only opposed to the Japanese militarists and harbored no enmity for the Japanese people.... While we must insist on the strict compliance with the term of the surrender, we must not look forward to retaliation, and much less shall we impose insults on the innocent civilians. We can only sympathize with their plight—coerced and misled as they have been by their Fascist and Nazi leaders, and hope that they will repent of their mistake and sins. If, on the other hand, we attempt to retaliate with atrocity for the past atrocities of the enemy, and repay with insult their mistaken superiority complex in the past, then the spirit of revenge shall be interminably perpetuated—a development far from the intentions of our righteousness-loving Army."

"As long as we have Taiwan, the Communists can never win."

"The sky cannot have two suns."

"These Japanese troops slaughtered every man, woman and child in those areas — let me repeat — these Japanese troops slaughtered every man, woman and child in those areas."

"Your Excellency, the American people share your abiding faith in the ultimate triumph of justice over evil. We look confidently toward the day when the great people of China will again take their place in the struggle for those principles of freedom and progress espoused by Dr. Sun Yat-Sen."

"Right will triumph over might-this great truth which we never once doubted has been finally vindicated. Our faith in justice through black and hopeless days and eight long years of struggle has today been rewarded. The historical mission of our National Revolution has at last been fulfilled....We have won the victory. But it is not yet the final victory. The universal power of righteousness has not simply achieved one more triumph. We and the people of all the world fervently hope that this war may be the last war in which civilized nations engage. Permanent world peace can be established only upon the basis of democratic freedom and equality and the brotherly co-operation of all nations and races. We must march forward on the great road of democracy and unity and give our collective support to the ideals of lasting peace. I urge all of our friends of the Allied nations and all my own countrymen to face the fact that the peace we have gained by arms is not necessarily the beginning of permanent peace. Only if our enemies are conquered on the battleground of reason, only if they repent thoroughly of their folly and become lovers of world peace like ourselves, can we hope to satisfy the yearning for peace and achieve the final goal of the great war that has just ended"

"Mao is a strange man whose personality is like the Tao, sometimes yin and sometimes yang; he has a soft-as-cotton outer layer, but at the same time has sharp needles hiding inside... I do not think he will achieve anything, in the end, he will be crushed inside my palm."

"The Japanese are a disease of the skin, the Communists are a disease of the heart."

"We must unite to exterminate these Japanese bandits, before we can be safe."

"If and when the war starts, no matter where or whoever you are or if you are young or old, Northerner or Southerner, you all have the responsibility of protecting our home and repelling the enemy, you all must have the will to achieve ultimate sacrifice."

"Let our people realize to the full the meaning of 'the limit of endurance,' and the extent of sacrifice implied. For once that stage is reached, we can only sacrifice and fight to the bitter end."

"We must use every inch of our blood to take back every inch of our land, you ten thousand youths and soldiers."

"The only world leader who sympathised with Indian aspirations at that time was Chiang Kai-shek of China whom Pandit Nehru had denounced as a reactionary tool of Western imperialism only a few years earlier."

"Thinking about the people I admire in this life, you, my lady, are the only one...recalling the hundred battles fought on the front and my own type of heroism, I cannot but feel that so-called achievement is just an illusion or a dream. And yet, my lady, your talent, beauty and virtue are not things I can ever forget. The only question is: what does my lady think of this retired soldier who has been abandoned by the whole world?"

"When I was young, I did not try my best to learn how to conduct myself. As a result I have not done anything good for my parents and I do not know how to be kind to my children. I regret that....I miss Ching-kuo very much. I am bad because I am not taking good care of him. I am sorry about that....Madame Sun wanted me to release Naulen [a detained Polish Communist charged with running the CCP's regional bureaus from Shanghai] in return for the repatriation of Ching-kuo, [but] I would rather let Ching-kuo be exiled or killed in Soviet Russia than exchange a criminal for him. God decides whether you will have an heir and whether your nation will be subjugated. How dare I do anything about it. What I want is not to violate the law, betray my country, harm the reputation of my parents, or waste my life. It is not worth it to sacrifice the interests of the country for the sake of my son."

"I deeply wish that my son could come back. However...I would rather have no offspring than sacrifice our nation's interests."

"It is my greatest wish, that German-Chinese cooperation always be supported by accomplishment, and that the personal affinity between both countries always be as strong as it is today. You, Herr Reichskanzler, have already given expression to this thought in that you had the honorary sword of the German Reich given to me. I take it as a symbol of soldierly loyalty and as a true sign of the friendly relationship of our countries."

"How would I differ from the Communists...if I were to imitate the so-called fascists . . . of Italy?"

"If we do not weed the present body of corruption, bribery, perfunctoriness, and ignorance, and establish instead a clean and efficient administration, the day will soon come when the revolution will be started against us."

"Which are you, my subordinate or my enemy? If my subordinate, you should obey my orders. If you are my enemy you should kill me without delay. You should choose either of these two steps, but say nothing more for I will not listen to you...My head may be cut off, my body may be mutilated, but I must preserve the honour of the Chinese people, and must uphold law and order....If I allow the honour of the 400,000,000 people whom I represent to be degraded by accepting any demands to save my own life, we should lose our national existence....Why don't you kill me now?"

"You and I are men of history / No little men chattering about minor affairs! / Go, let go, my honoured friend / Do not look back."

"God and the people are the source of all power. I have twice been given the power. I have taken it, and damn it, I will keep it forever."