The Popular Unity government represented the first attempt anywhere to build a genuinely democratic transition to socialism - a socialism that, owing to its origins, might be guided not by authoritarian bureaucracy, but by democratic self-rule.

Fidel Castro is a man with a great sense of self-criticism and respect for his political friends. He is not going to give me instructions, and I am not the type of man who would take them. That's not to say that I don't approve of what is happening in Cuba, but he would never send me a letter telling me what to do or not to do.

I still believe in what I believed in for 20 years as a Socialist in Parliament, and being a Socialist is not the same as being a utopian.

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

People can progress only by working and producing more.

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

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.