Economists From Portugal

"God, Homeland, Family."

"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."

"In politics, what appears is."

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

"Half a dozen slaps the time."

"To Angola, quickly and with strength!"

"Proudly alone!"

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"Those who can, must obey."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The most complete statesman, the one most worthy of respect, that I have known is Salazar. I regard him as an extraordinary personality for his intelligence, his political sense and his humility. His only defect is probably his modesty."

"[Salazar] didn't look like a regular dictator. Rather, he appeared a modest, quiet, and highly intelligent gentleman and scholar […] literally dragged from a professorial chair of political economy in the venerable University of Coimbra a dozen years previously in order to straighten out Portugal's finances."

"Though he never took Holy Orders he continued to live the solitary, ascetic life of a priest – never marrying, and devoting all his time, first to his academic career as an economist at Coimbra University, and later to running the government. He was cold, intellectual, and dedicated – a man of painful reserve: an almost Manichean fastidiousness, implying perhaps a distaste for sex, and always a total involvement with his job."

"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."

"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."

"Salazar was, undoubtedly, one of the most remarkable men in the history of Portugal and possessed a quality that remarkable men do not always have: the right intention."

"Salazar was never a soldier, but a prestigious professor of economics and public finance at the University of Coimbra. In 1928, at the age of thirty-nine, he first entered the Portuguese government as finance minister (and, in fact, was the one who, in 1929, authorized our life insurance company to operate in Portugal). The military junta had desperately turned to Salazar with the challenge of putting the public accounts in order, which he fully achieved. This success gave him immense political prestige, to the point that he became prime minister (and acquired absolute power) in 1933. Thus, in contrast to Franco, Salazar came to power by peaceful means, at a younger age (though he was three years older than Franco), and with a well-earned reputation as an academic and a manager."

"He always led a very simple and austere life and resisted honors, monuments, distinctions, and special treatment, even in his own home parish (Vimieiro), where he had a small vineyard and liked to withdraw to tend it on holidays. Salazar possessed great personal charm, he knew how to listen, and his capacity for work and attention to detail were admirable."

"Portugal, under the leadership of Salazar, became an island of peace and liberty in Europe during the dark years of World War II and its aftermath."