(Reuters) - Venezuela’s late president, Hugo Chavez, courted controversy throughout his 14 years in power.
Here are some of his best-known quotes:
“For now, lamentably, the objectives we sought were not achieved. ... New situations will come and the country must definitively get on the path to a better destiny.”
“I’m not the devil.”
“Cuba is a dictatorship.”
Nationalization plans? “No, absolutely nothing.”
Hand over power in five years? “Of course, I am willing to give up power even earlier.”
“I swear in front of my people, that over this moribund constitution, I will push forward the democratic transformations that are necessary.”
“Marisabel, I’m giving you one tonight, get ready!”
DURING SHORT-LIVED COUP AGAINST HIM IN 2002
“I am a president held prisoner, I have not resigned.”
“Christopher Columbus (the Italian-born explorer) was the spearhead of the biggest invasion and genocide ever seen in the history of humanity.”
“We go from summit to summit, while our people go from abyss to abyss.”
“Being rich is bad, it’s inhuman.”
ON FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH AT THE UNITED NATIONS, 2006
“Yesterday the devil came here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today.”
“You are an alcoholic, a drunk, a liar, an immoral person, Mr. Danger. You are the worst ... a psychologically sick man.”
“The lord of war is Donald Rumsfeld, one of the dogs of the devil.”
“Israel criticizes Hitler a lot, so do we, but they’ve done something very similar, even worse, than what the Nazis did.”
“I think we are suffering from political impotence. We need political Viagra.”
ON THEN-BRITISH PRIME MINISTER TONY BLAIR, 2006
“You are an imperialist pawn. ... Go straight to hell.”
“Capitalism is the way of the devil and exploitation. If you really want to look at things through the eyes of Jesus Christ - who I think was the first socialist - only socialism can really create a genuine society.”
ORDERING NATIONALIZATIONS ON LIVE TV, 2007-11
“Expropriate it!”
“Theirs is a victory of shit.”
“You are the father of the revolutions on this continent, you are our father.”
“He was a true fascist.”
The comment was part of a series made by Chavez at a summit that prompted Spain’s King Juan Carlos to shoot back, “Why don’t you shut up?”
Chavez later responded, “If I shut up, you will hear the shouts of the stones of all the peoples of Latin America willing to be free from 500 years of colonialism.”
“I chew coca leaves every morning, and look at me!”
“Go to hell, Yankee shits, here stands a dignified people. Go to hell a hundred times, we are the sons of Bolivar!”
“If God gives me life and health, I’ll be with you until 2021! Hey ho, Chavez will not go!”
TO U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AT THE SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS, 2009
“I want to be your friend.”
“We thought he was a cannibal ... I have doubts ... Maybe he was a great nationalist, a patriot.”
“You are a fraud, Obama. ... Go and ask many people in Africa, who might have believed in you because of the color of your skin, because your father was from Africa. You are an Afro-descendant, but you are the shame of all those people.”
“He was a worthy promoter of the greatest struggles ... a revolutionary fighter.”
“I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet.
ACCUSING THE CIA OF SPREADING CANCER IN LATIN AMERICA, 2011
“It would not be strange if they had developed the technology to induce cancer and nobody knew about it until now.”
“Bombing the brave Libyan people to save them? What a brilliant strategy by the mad empire. Where are the international rights? This is like the caveman era.”
ON SEEING EXUBERANT SUPPORTER IN A LIFE-SIZE PUPPET SUIT OF CHAVEZ LOSE HIS PANTS ON NATIONAL TV, 2011
“Tie them up, brother! You can’t let Chavez’s trousers fall down!”
BEFORE ONE OF WORLD’S LONGEST SPEECHES, 9 1/2 HOURS, 2012
“I promise you that at least I will make an effort not to be so lengthy.”
“The eagle does not hunt the fly.”
“It will be easier for a donkey to pass through the eye of a needle than for the opposition to win the elections.”
“You have a pig’s tail, a pig’s ears, you snort like a pig, you’re a low-life pig. You’re a pig, don’t try and hide it.”
“Give me your crown, Jesus. Give me your cross, your thorns so that I may bleed. But give me life, because I have more to do for this country and these people. Do not take me yet.”
“These are not easy days, but we are warriors against adversity. ... I can’t continue being the same runaway horse.”
Compiled by Caracas newsroom; Editing by Kieran Murray and Stacey Joyce
