I have been to Cuba many times. I have spoken many times with Fidel Castro and got to know Commander Ernesto Guevara well enough. I know Cuba's leaders and their struggle. It has been difficult to overcome the blockade. But the reality in Cuba is very different from that in Chile. Cuba came from a dictatorship, and I arrived at the presidency after being senator for 25 years.

Only an organized and conscious people can bring about a different kind of society.

First fulfill your academic obligations and then you will have the right to call yourself a leader of the left.

I was a minister in the Frente Popular (Popular Front) government, one of the three in Chile during the Pedro Aguirre Cerda years, and I was as much a Socialist then as I am today.

I have often said that it doesn't matter to me if a student tells me he is a leader of the left, unless he is a good student. We need good students.

I have always said to workers that they have to work hard, to produce more and better. In Chile, we need to achieve an average annual income of US$2,000, and to do that we need to increase production.

It's much harder to bring about socialism through legal means, because there are so many possibilities for opposition.