People From Sao Paulo

"In 2013, an agreement between the Workers Party government and the Cuban dictatorship brought to Brazil 10 thousand physicians with no professional registration. They were prevented from bringing their spouses and children, had 75% of their wages confiscated by the regime and were denied basic freedoms, such as that of coming and going. True slave work, believe it... With the support of human rights agencies from both Brazil and the UN! Even before I took over, almost 90% of these physicians left Brazil due to unilateral action by the Cuban regime. Those that stayed on will undergo medical qualification in order to able to practice their profession. This is how our country stopped supporting the Cuban dictatorship, no longer sending Havana 300 million dollars every year. History shows that as early as the 1960s, Cuban agents were sent to several countries to help establish dictatorships."

"A few decades ago they tried to change the Brazilian regime and that of other Latin American countries. They have been defeated! Brazilian civilians and military were killed and many others had their reputation destroyed, but we won that war and safeguarded our liberty."

"These agents from the Cuban regime were also taken to Venezuela by Hugo Chávez. Today around 60 thousand of them control and interfere with every area of local society, especially in intelligence and defense. Venezuela, once a thriving and democratic country, undergoes today the cruelty of socialism. Socialism is working in Venezuela! Everyone is poor and has no freedom! Brazil also feels the impact from the Venezuelan dictatorship. A part of the 4 million people that escaped the country, fleeing hunger and violence, migrated to Brazil. We have done our part to help them through Operation Welcome, an operation conducted by the Brazilian Army that has gained world-wide acclaim. We have been working with other countries, including the United States, with a view to reestablishing democracy in Venezuela. We are also making a serious effort to ensure that no other South American country has to experience this nefarious regime. The Forum of São Paulo, a criminal organization established in 1990 by Fidel Castro, Lula and Hugo Chávez in order to spread and implement socialism in Latin America, remains alive and must be fought."

"Our Amazon rainforest is larger than Western Europe and it remains virtually untouched. This shows that we are one of the countries that protects the most its environment. This time of the year, dry weather and winds favor both spontaneous and criminal fires. It is also important to mention that indigenous and local populations also use fire as part of their culture and means of survival. All countries have their issues. However, the sensationalist attacks we have suffered from much of the international media due to the Amazon fires have aroused our patriotic sentiment. It is a misconception to state that the Amazon is a world heritage; and it is a misconception, as scientists attest, to say that our forest is the lung of the world. Resorting to these fallacies, some countries, instead of helping, have followed the lies of the media and behaved disrespectfully, with a colonialist spirit. They have questioned what is most sacred to us: our sovereignty! One of them, at the last G7 meeting, dared to suggest imposing sanctions against Brazil without even listening to us."

"Today, 14% of the Brazilian territory is demarcated as indigenous land, but we must understand that our natives are human beings, just like any of us. They want and deserve to enjoy the same rights as all of us. I want to make it clear: Brazil will not increase its already demarcated indigenous lands to 20%, as some Heads of State would like it to happen."

"The views of an indigenous leader does not represent that of all the Brazilian indigenous population. Often some of these leaders, such as Cacique Raoni, are used as a ploy by foreign governments in their information warfare to advance their interests in the Amazon."

"Unfortunately, some people, both inside and outside Brazil, with the support of NGOs, insist on treating and keeping our natives as cavemen. Brazil now has a President who cares about those who were there before the Portuguese arrived. Indigenous people do not want to be poor landowners on richlands – especially on the richest lands in the world. This is the case of the Ianomâmi and Raposa Serra do Sol reserves. In these reserves, there is plenty of gold, diamond, uranium, niobium and rare earths, among others. And these territories are huge! The Ianomâmi Reserve alone has approximately 95,000 km², the size of Portugal or Hungary, although only 15,000 indigenous live in the area."

"Mr Raoni’s monopoly has been brought to an end."

"This shows that those who attack us are not concerned with the indigenous human being, but with the mineral wealth and biodiversity in these areas. The United Nations has played a key role in overcoming colonialism and cannot accept this mentality to return to these halls and corridors under any pretext."

""After the scare, after the storm"

"Gramsci's remarks are rich and stimulating, but in the last analysis they follow the classical Marxist pattern of analysing religion. Ernst Bloch was the first Marxist author who radically changed the theoretical framework—without abandoning the Marxist and revolutionary perspective. In a similar way to Engels, he distinguished two socially opposed currents: on one side the theocratic religion of the official churches, opium of the people, a mystifying apparatus at the service of the powerful; on the other the underground, subversive and heretical religion of the Albigensians, the Hussites, Joachim di Fiori, Thomas Münzer, Franz von Baader, Wilhelm Weitling and Leo Tolstoy."

"Ernst Bloch ... recognized the dual character of the religious phenomenon, its oppressive aspect as well as its potential for revolt. The first requires the use of what he called 'the cold stream of Marxism': the relentless materialist analysis of ideologies, idols and idolatries. The second, however, requires 'the warm stream of Marxism', seeking to rescue religion's utopian cultural surplus, its critical and anticipatory force."

"The most surprising and original part of [Lucien Goldmann's] work is, however, the attempt to compare—without assimilating one to another—religious faith and Marxist faith: both have in common the refusal of pure individualism (rationalist or empiricist) and the belief in trans-individual values—God for religion, the human community for socialism. In both cases the faith is based on a wager—the Pascalian wager on the existence of God and the Marxist wager on the liberation of humanity—that presupposes risk, the danger of failure and the hope of success."

"For centuries, Catholic theology and popular tradition saw the poor as the earthly image of Christ's sufferings. As the theologian A. Bonnefous wrote in his book Le Chrestian charitable (1637), 'the poor man one helps is perhaps Jesus Christ himself'."

"A sturdy, two-fisted fighter with a big punch. Remember, while most American fans didn’t get a chance to see him in action, there was a time in the early-and mid 60s where he was considered the best fighter, pound-for pound, in the world."

"The excitement I underwent before the bout was something I’ll never forget. For a week I trained extra hard. I ran extra long distances. Every night when I went to bed I dreamed I was fighting. It was so clear – I would be going at it hot and heavy, then I would bring over a right hand and he would go down, the fight was over. Then the fight began. Here all the nervousness went out of me. I was doing what I wanted to do. It all seemed like something I had done many times before. And you know what? In the third round, just as I dreamed, I hit him with a hard right hand. Down he went and he didn’t get up. I had knocked him out."

"It was my ambition to fight Becerra. I didn't care where. But that very year Becerra was unlucky enough to be responsible for the death of Walt Ingram, whom he had boxed in Mexico. I don't think he wanted to fight too much after that. He continued for another year, or until he himself was knocked out over the weight in Mexico by Eloy Sanchez. Then he did retire."

"Without any doubt the best driver in Grand Prix racing today."

"I'll be honest with you; I was never a Senna fan. I always thought Gilles Villeneuve was the greatest racing driver of them all. But, to make this film, I've watched hours and hours and hours of footage. And the thing is, Villeneuve was spectacular on a number of occasions. Senna — he was spectacular every single time he got in a car."

"Ayrton was the most misunderstood person out there because he got such a bad rap in the media. I can assure you he was a good person. He was very supportive of me last year."

"His loss is impossible to quantify. Everyone who has ever met him in whatever capacity feels they have lost someone very special."

"He got to a position where he was only equalled probably, by Fangio."

"He was probably the fastest champion I ever saw. He was always stretching the elastic. My goodness was he quick."

"He might have been the greatest driver of all time. There was not a weakness in Ayrton Senna."

"Still we celebrate Ayrton Senna, twenty five years after losing him on May Day 1994. I was in that race, driving the McLaren that he stepped out of to go to Williams. Terrible day... such tragedy, such loss, such a waste of God-given talent. There's only one thing that would make me happier today, and that surprisingly enough is not driving this car, it'd be standing in the pitlane waiting to interview our friend Ayrton after he'd had another drive of this amazing racing car. Obrigado, Senna."

"Without doubt the greatest racing driver ever."

"To my mind, he was the best driver Grand Prix racing has ever seen."

"Senna was the greatest driver ever and when someone like him is killed you have to ask yourself what is the point of it all."

"I tried to find weaknesses in Senna, but I couldn't. He is 100 per cent in everything. I learned a lot from him, so for me it was a good three years. And I still like Senna. We had good fun, a good relationship."

"Ayrton Senna is a genius. I define genius as just the right side of imbalance. He is highly developed to the point where he's almost over the edge. It's a close call."

"Probably the greatest racing driver of all time."

"The guy is head and shoulders ahead of everybody else currently in Formula One."

"If I ever happen to have an accident that eventually costs me my life, I hope it is in one go. I would not like to be in a wheelchair. I would not like to be in a hospital suffering from whatever injury it was. If I’m going to live, I want to live fully, very intensely, because I am an intense person. It would ruin my life if I had to live partially."

"I'm very privileged. I've always had a very good life. But everything that I've gotten out of life was obtained through dedication and a tremendous desire to achieve my goals... a great desire for victory, meaning victory in life, not as a driver. To all of you who have experienced this or are searching now, let me say that whoever you may be in your life, whether you're at the highest or most modest level, you must show great strength and determination and do everything with love and a deep belief in God. One day, you'll achieve your aim and you'll be successful."

"I won and I'm happy and that is it."

"We are made of emotions, we are all looking for emotions, it's only a question of finding the way to experience them. There are many different ways of experience them all. Perhaps one different thing, only that, one particular thing that Formula One can provide you, is that you know we are always expose to danger, danger of getting hurt, danger of dying."

"On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, 'Okay, this is the limit.' As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high."

"I believe in the ability of focusing strongly in something, then you are able to extract even more out of it. It's been like this all my life, and it's been only a question of improving it, and learning more and more and there is almost no end. As you go through you just keep finding more and more. It's very interesting, it's fascinating."

"Whoever you are, no matter what social position you have, rich or poor, always show great strength and determination, and always do everything with much love and deep faith in God. One day you will reach your goal."

"Basically our championship starts here. Fourteen races, not sixteen. It's not a comfortable position to be in, but that's the reality. The team is conscious about the challenge we have to make to recover the ground over Benetton."

"If you take away Eau Rouge, you take away the reason why I do this."

"By being a racing driver you are under risk all the time. By being a racing driver means you are racing with other people. And if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver because we are competing, we are competing to win. And the main motivation to all of us is to compete for victory, it's not to come 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th. I race to win as long as I feel it's possible. Sometimes you get it wrong? Sure, it's impossible to get it right all the time. But I race designed to win, as long as I feel I'm doing it right."

"Racing, competing, is in my blood. It's part of me, it's part of my life; I've been doing it all my life. And it stands up before anything else."

"It's important that the drivers stay together, because in difficult moments we have each other. If we are not together the financial and political interests of the organisers and constructors come to the fore."

"I started racing go-karts. And I love karts. It's the most breathtaking sport in the world. More than F1, indeed, I used to like it most."

"The best driver in Grand Prix racing, the best driver in the world by a long way."

"Senna really is the best racing driver in the world, not only the fastest."

"Ayrton Senna may be a genius, but he is a flawed genius."

"There are no small accidents here."

"If all creation rests upon a passion, it is for me also an act of love and an attempt to discover in myself an inner world."