Former Cuban leader and politician Fidel Castro died on Friday night at the age of 90. Castro was a revolutionary leader who ruled Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008.
Castro was the third longest serving leader in the world, the first two being the Queen of Britain and the King of Thailand. The former Cuban president and prime minister claimed to have survived 634 attempts made to assassinate him, mostly planned by the US Central Intelligence Agency.
Castro married Mirta Diaz Balart, the daughter of a rich family tied to the Batista regime. They had a son named Fidelito in 1949. However, she divorced him when she found out about his affair with a Cuban socialite. His eldest son Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart (from his first wife) is a Soviet-trained nuclear scientist. He has five sons — the names of whom begin with 'A' — with his second wife Dalia Soto.
Here are the top 10 quotes by Fidel Castro:
"A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past."
"Condemn me, it does not matter: history will absolve me."
"I began revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and plan of action."
"With what moral authority can [the US] speak of human rights... the rulers of a nation in which the millionaire and beggar coexist; where the Indian is exterminated; the black man is discriminated against; the woman is prostituted; and the great masses of Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and Latin Americans are scorned, exploited, and humiliated... Where the CIA organizes plans of global subversion and espionage, and the Pentagon creates neutron bombs capable of preserving material assets and wiping out human beings."
"Ideas do not need weapons."
"If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal."
"North Americans don't understand... that our country is not just Cuba; our country is also humanity."
"The percentage of mentally disturbed people in the United States is very high. From the time the American gets up in the morning, he feels as if someone is trying to influence his will in some way: he is a person with a thousand pressures. The Americans live under a great strain ... and have great feelings of frustration."
"I would not vote for the mayor. It's not just because he didn't invite me to dinner, but because on my way into town from the airport there were such enormous potholes."
"You cannot utter the word democracy, because, among other reasons, everyone in the world knows your ascent to the US presidency was a fraud." - On George Bush after the invasion of Iraq in 2004."
