Simon Bolivar Quotes

Success will crown our efforts, because the destiny of America has been irrevocably decided; the tie that bound her to Spain has been severed.

16,000,000 Americans either defend their rights or suffer repression at the hands of Spain, which, although once the world's greatest empire, is now too weak, with what little is left her, to rule the new hemisphere or even to maintain herself in the old. And shall Europe, the civilized, the merchant, the lover of liberty allow an aged serpent, bent only on satisfying its venomous rage, devour the fairest part of our globe? What! Is Europe deaf to the clamor of her own interests? Has she no eyes to see justice?

The role of the inhabitants of the American hemisphere has for centuries been purely passive. Politically they were nonexistent. We are still in a position lower than slavery, and therefore it is more difficult for us to rise to the enjoyment of freedom.

Generous souls always interest themselves in the fate of a people who strive to recover the rights to which the Creator and Nature have entitled them, and one must indeed be wedded to error and passion not to harbor this noble sentiment

Nearly a million persons formerly dwelt in Venezuela, and it is no exaggeration to say that one out of four has succumbed either to the land, sword, hunger, plague, flight, or privation, all consequences of the war

It is essential that a government mold itself … to the nature of the circumstances, the times, and the men that comprise it. If these factors are prosperity and peace, the government should be mild and protecting; but if they are turbulence and disaster, it should be stern and arm itself with a firmness that matches its dangers, without regard for laws or constitutions until happiness and peace have been reestablished.

How beautiful it would be if the Isthmus of Panama should come to be to us what the Isthmus of Corinth was to the Greeks! May God grant that some day we may have the happiness of installing there an august congress of the representatives of the republics, kingdoms and empires, to discuss and study the high interests of peace and war with nations of other three parts of the world!

Europe itself, by policy, should have prepared and carried out plans for South American independence; not only because it is necessary for the proper balance of the world, but because it is a legitimate and safe means for obtaining commercial bases on this side of the ocean.

The blood of the Carrera cries for vengeance. Vengeance, fellow countrymen! Hatred eternal for the despots of South America... Chile is to be a mere colony of Buenos Aires, as she once was a colony of Spain... From the Argentine they send governors for your provinces, magistrates for your towns, generals and armies for you frontiers

You know that independence is purchased at the point of the bayonet. Know also that liberty is founded on good faith, and on the laws of honor, and that those who infringe upon these, are your only enemies, amongst whom you will never find Lord Cochrane

These natives prefer the name of Americans to that of Creoles, since the peace of Versailles, and particularly since 1789, one often hears them say with pride: “I am not a Spaniard, I am an American.”

It is impossible to say with any certainty to which human race we belong. We all differ visibly in the color of our skin.

Thankfully, Australia has emerged from its inauspicious colonial beginnings to become a proud nation, a nation that overcame those primeval prejudices.

Let's face it: without the French there would be no America...in other words, without them, there is no us.

The American continents ... are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.... We should consider any attempt [by European countries] to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European Power we have not interfered, and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independence, and maintained it ... we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling, in any other manner, their destiny, by any European Power, in any other light than as the manifestations of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States. [The "Monroe Doctrine."]

It is the object of this Government to be on terms of peace with you, and with all of our red brethren. We make treaties with you and we try to observe them; and if our children should sometimes behave badly, and violate these treaties, it is against our wish.

Spain today, rather than a nation, is a cloud of dust remaining after a great people have galloped down the highway of history.

Spaniards planted slave States in America; England planted not only slave States, but free ones. Spain planted twice as many as England, and cultivated them with more assiduous and maternal care. The Anglo-American free States are all of them strong and vigorous, and already over-shadow the Continent. Europe regards them with respect and admiration. There is not one Spanish American State that is truly self-subsisting and independent.

When your thirteen colonies won their freedom from Great Britain you took a brand from our council fire and kindled your own fire. Now the same fire is trying to consume the very people who taught you the worth of such a fire. The hand that guided and protected your ancestors is now open to you for justice.

God forbid that these beautiful countries become, as did St. Domingue, a theatre of blood and of crime under the pretext of establishing liberty, let them rather remain if necessary one century more under the barbarous and imbecile oppression of Spain.

Our hatred shall be implacable and the war shall be to the death.

Columbians prefer to descend to the eternal abysses rather than be Spaniards.

Latin America was born with a birth defect: a highly unequal initial distribution of resources that dates back to the colonial era.

When Harvard University opened its doors in 1636, there were already well-established Universities in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru.

We have a clear right to expect, therefore, that no European Government will seek to establish colonial dependencies upon the territory of these independent American States.