Minh Quotes & Sayings

Money, as a sort of drug, has become a great danger to our development. There will be no progress in our country unless we win the fight against corruption. This is a question of survival for the Communist Party of Vietnam and for socialism. — Nguyen Minh Triet

It is better to sacrifice everything than to live in slavery! — Ho Chi Minh

Home for the exile in a secular and contingent world is always provisional — Trinh T. Minh-ha

The main difference lies in wage levels, which is because our workers are not yet as well trained as in other countries. We are a poor country. This is why we must accept the conditions that prevail in international markets. But our trade unions do represent the rights of workers. — Nguyen Minh Triet

Nothing is more precious than independence and liberty. — Ho Chi Minh

Remember, the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability. — Ho Chi Minh

Despite all our desperate, eternal attempts to separate, contain and mend, categories always leak. — Trinh T. Minh-ha

We seem bent upon saving the Vietnamese from Ho Chi Minh, even if we have to kill them and demolish their country to do it ... I do not intend to remain silent in the face of what I regard as a policy of madness which, sooner or later, will envelop my son and American youth by the millions for years to come. — George McGovern

The British left intermittently erupts like a pustule upon the buttock of a rather good country. Seventy years ago it opposed mobilisation against Adolf Hitler and worshiped the other genocide, Josef Stalin. It has marched for Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Andropov. It has slobbered over Ceausescu and Mugabe. It has demonstrated against everything and everyone American for a century. — Frederick Forsyth

We fought hard for socialism in a devastating war of independence and reunification. To build an affluent and prosperous society, we chose the path of a socialist market economy. We have achieved strong economic growth, and yet the sense of solidarity in our society has not been lost. This is very important to people. — Nguyen Minh Triet

Usually, after a disagreement, they suggested i read this or that, often Marx, Lenin, or Engels. I preferred Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il Sung, Che, or Fidel, but i ended up having to get into Marx and Lenin just to understand a lot of the speeches and stuff Huey Newton was putting out. — Assata Shakur

I read to be alone. I read so as not to be alone. — Bich Minh Nguyen

Local authorities keep an eye on proceedings. The Saigon Protestant Church in Ho Chi Minh City, for instance, one of the biggest in the country, has to submit a list of its event schedules, financial records and appointments of Church leaders to government officials for their prior approval. — Insight Guides

When I stepped into the brown-tiled entryway of the Kentwood Public Library, the sunlight flowing down on me from the high windows, I felt a sense of importance. It gratified me to be in a place devoted to books and quiet; I was filled with a sense of hope. Reading to me was fundamental, as fundamental as food. And nothing could be more satisfying than reading a good book while eating a good meal of mi soup, french fries, and a thin cut of steak. I plowed through books as fast as possible in order to read them again. — Bich Minh Nguyen

And just as there was something of every Vietnamese in Ho Chi Minh so there is something of Ho Chi Minh in almost every present-day Vietnamese, so strong is his imprint on the Vietnamese nation. — Wilfred Burchett

German businesspeople have invested a great deal in our country, and trade is flourishing. We want to speed up economic cooperation. Your country is a large, important provider of aid, and it has done a great deal to reduce the poverty of many Vietnamese. — Nguyen Minh Triet

In Hawaii, many were especially helpful and supportive of this project, but nobody more than Mary Kennedy and Frank "Bamboo" Opperman. My landlords became close friends, and their Mokuleia compound will always hold a special place in my heart. Mokuleia equestrian Michael Daly was also extremely helpful to both Mike Ritter and myself. Another special thanks goes to Duc Nguyen and Minh Nga Vu, the proprietors of Duc's Bistro. The restaurant provided a safe harbor at a very tumultuous time in the project. Their generosity, grace, and delicious — Peter Maguire

Intellectuals and celebrities venerated monsters like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, & Ho Chi Minh. The New Left of the 1960s didn't have a change of heart, just a change of icons from Stalin to third world tyrants. The homicidal and sadistic Che Guevara is still held up as a hero ... — Jamie Glazov

When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out. — Ho Chi Minh

The object of my relationship with Vietnam has been to heal the wounds that exist, particularly among our veterans, and to move forward with a positive relationship, ... Apparently some in the Vietnamese government don't want to do that and that's their decision. — Ho Chi Minh

He belongs to that fraction of humanity which for centuries has made other fractions the objects of contempt and exploitation, then, when it saw the handwriting on the wall, set about to give them back their humanity. — Trinh T. Minh-ha

The rice grain suffers under the blow of the pestle. But admire its whiteness once the order is over. So it is with men and the world we live in. To be a man one must suffer the blows of misfortune. — Ho Chi Minh

Write in such a way as that you can be readily understood by both the young and the old, by men as well as women, even by children. — Ho Chi Minh

I and others may be revolutionaries but we are disciples of Mahatma Gandhi, directly or indirectly, nothing more nothing less. — Ho Chi Minh

The governments and the communist parties in Vietnam and China are doing their best to develop their local economies. But the rise of countries in Asia is not in opposition to development and affluence in Western nations. It is a mutually beneficial development. The interests of Western investors are protected in our country. Both we and the West benefit from this in equal measure. — Nguyen Minh Triet

You will kill ten of us, we will kill one of you, but in the end, you will tire of it first. — Ho Chi Minh

In the mid-1950s Winston Churchill advised his American friends to recognize that Ho Chi Minh was unbeatable, accept his victory, and try to make the best of it. This the Dulles brothers could not do - because they were Americans. — Stephen Kinzer

Never does one open the discussion by coming right to the heart of the matter. For the heart of the matter is always somewhere else than where it is supposed to be. To allow it to emerge, people approach it indirectly by postponing until it matures, by letting it come when it is ready to come. There is no catching, no pushing, no directing, no breaking through, no need for a linear progression which gives the comforting illusion that one knows where one goes. Time and space are not something entirely exterior to oneself, something that one has, keeps, saves, wastes, or loses. — Trinh T. Minh-ha

A poet must learn to wage war. — Ho Chi Minh

To reap a return in ten years, plant trees. To reap a return in 100, cultivate the people. — Ho Chi Minh

I looked back all the time, too much, too often. Like Rose, I would be circling my mother the rest of my life. — Bich Minh Nguyen

Colonial atrocities have prepared the soil; it is for socialists to sow the seeds of revolution. — Ho Chi Minh

You fools! Don't you realize what it means if the Chinese remain? Don't you remember your history? The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they will never go. As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life. — Ho Chi Minh

Getting through the intersection involves tracing paths through the parking system, many braided filaments of direction like the Ho Chi Minh trail. — Neal Stephenson

As in all his subsequent dealings with France, Ho Chi Minh's demands were a model of modesty. — Wilfred Burchett

Military action without politics is like a tree without a root. — Ho Chi Minh

Every house was festooned with flowers and with lanterns. On the national day, the whole country went wild with joy, But on that very day, I was placed in chains and transferred: The wind remains contrary to the flight of the eagle. — Ho Chi Minh

Was she Minh Thuy, finally, or was she Jenny? But the time when there had been a meaningful difference between the two would come to seem like a tiny neighborhood where you couldn't decide which house was yours. Which felt important when you were high above, you thought, in the foothills, but not so much at the truer remove of a continent, where the lives you'd lived and the places you'd come from, dwindled to a single point on the horizon, in the incorrigibly distant past. — Garth Risk Hallberg

The world is a big place, and there are many paths that lead to success. This applies to both political and economic concepts. For this reason, we see no need to stoically pursue the Chinese, American or French way. But we have socialism in common with China. — Nguyen Minh Triet

It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me. — Ho Chi Minh

The great victory of April 30 represents the triumph of the entire nation, of justice over brutality and of humanity over tyranny. — Ho Chi Minh

I only follow one party: the Vietnamese party. — Ho Chi Minh

I believe firmly in reconciliation among Vietnamese to avoid unnecessary shedding of the blood of Vietnamese. — Duong Van Minh

I had been a guerrilla leader in World War II. And I used to say that the way to fight the guerrilla was with guerrillas. And I disbelieved that you could by bombing, ah, have any effect on the supplies coming down through the Ho Chi Minh trails. — Roger Hilsman

You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win. — Ho Chi Minh

We have been waiting for you so that we could turn over the government. — Duong Van Minh

Everything depends on the Americans. If they want to make war for 20 years then we shall make war for 20 years. If they want to make peace, we shall make peace and invite them to tea afterwards. — Ho Chi Minh

You and I are close, we intertwine; you may stand on the other side of the hill once in awhile, but you may also be me while remaining what you are and what I am not. — Trinh T. Minh-ha

We [Vietnam] happen to offer good investment opportunities for foreigners, although this is not a one-way street. Both we and the foreign investors benefit greatly as a result. — Nguyen Minh Triet

But the Viet-Minh had had about ten months in which to establish their administration, train their forces with Japanese and American weapons (and Japanese and Chinese instructors), and kill or terrorize into submission the genuine Vietnamese nationalists who wanted a Viet-Nam independent from France but equally free of Communist rule. The first round of the war for Indochina already had been lost for the West before it had even begun. — Bernard B. Fall

Our mountains will always be, our rivers will always be, our people will always be, The American invaders defeated, we will rebuild our land ten times more beautiful. — Ho Chi Minh

Through leadership of the fight against French colonialism, Ho Chi Minh had made a name for himself in the international political arena. — Nguyen Cao Ky

Although our fight will be long and hard, our people are resolved to fight till final victory. — Ho Chi Minh

Our resistance will be long and painful, but whatever the sacrifices, however long the struggle, we shall fight to the end, until Vietnam is fully independent and reunified. — Ho Chi Minh

Robert Conquest once suggested that 'a curious little volume might be made of the poems of Stalin, Castro, Mao and Ho Chi Minh, with illustrations by A. Hitler. — Martin Amis

Heads of state are notoriously ill prepared for their mature careers; think of Adolf Hitler (landscape painter), Ho Chi Minh (seaman), and our own Ronald Reagan. — Barbara Ehrenreich

We also have no taboos against freedom of expression. Although I am president, I must confront the criticism of party members in my election district once every three months. In addition, people pay close attention to what my wife does and how my children live. — Nguyen Minh Triet

I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law. The very facts were shrouded in uncertainty: Was it a civil war? A war of national liberation or simple aggression? Who started it, and when, and why? What really happened to the USS Maddox on that dark night in the Gulf of Tonkin? Was Ho Chi Minh a Communist stooge, or a nationalist savior, or both, or neither? What about the Geneva Accords? What about SEATO and the Cold War? What about dominoes? America was divided on these and a thousand other issues, and the debate had spilled out across the floor of the United States Senate and into the streets, and smart men in pinstripes could not agree on even the most fundamental matters of public policy. The only certainty that summer was moral confusion. — Tim O'Brien

I used to hunt as a child but gave up the chase in my 'Ho Ho Ho Chi-Minh, we shall fight and we shall win' chanting and marching days - by which time I had come to share Oscar Wilde's feelings about 'the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.' — Jonathan Dimbleby

In the economy we guarantee all market players the same conditions, and the private sector plays an increasingly important role. We are in the process of dissolving thousands of state-owned companies and converting them into stock corporations. We even plan to accelerate this development. In contrast, it is the party's responsibility to improve the lives of the people, and this is where our citizens have great confidence in us. Party members who commit crimes are severely punished. — Nguyen Minh Triet

We respect the freedom of all citizens. Young people should have fun, but there is no tolerance of drug abuse. Drugs have become a serious problem in Vietnam. This is why we have very strict penalties for any sort of drug dealing. — Nguyen Minh Triet

You know, I met a wise man centuries ago in China who said to me, 'He who lets fear rule him, has fear for a master. (Acheron)
Confucius? (Talon)
No, Minh-Quan. He was a fisherman who used to sell what I'm told was the best zong zi ever made. (Acheron) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy. — Ho Chi Minh

The Vietnamese people deeply love independence, freedom and peace. But in the face of United States aggression they have risen up, united as one man. — Ho Chi Minh

If you do not condemn colonialism, if you do not side with the colonial people, what kind of revolution are you waging? — Ho Chi Minh

Everyone is always leaving each other, chasing down the next seeming opportunity - home or body. Where does it stop? Does it ever? I want to believe it all leads to something grander than the imagination, grander than the end-stop of the Pacific. Or is that it: You get to the place where you land; you are tired now; you settle. You settle. You build a home and raise a family. There are years of eating and arguing, working and waking. There are years of dying. No one knows what the last image will be. — Bich Minh Nguyen

Vast quantities of U.S. bombers, tanks and guns have been sent against Ho Chi Minh and his freedom-fighters; and now we are told that soon it will be 'advisable' to send America GI's into Indo-China in order that the tin, rubber and tungsten of Southeast Asia be kept by the "free world"-meaning white Imperialism . — Paul Robeson

We wait here to meet the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam to discuss together a ceremony of orderly transfer of power so as to avoid any unnecessary bloodshed in the population. — Duong Van Minh

I often have discussions with people who demand pluralism and much more. One can discuss these issues, but only within the framework of the law. — Nguyen Minh Triet

If we had had the privilege of giving hospitality to a Ho Chi Minh, with what respect and interest we would have served him, as a man of vision, as a patriot, a rebel against foreign invaders. — Dorothy Day

You will kill 10 of our men, and we will kill 1 of yours, and in the end it will be you who tire of it. — Ho Chi Minh

I'm very moved to be here today, ... Our lives are now much better, but Vietnam remains a very poor country. We need to work much harder. — Ho Chi Minh

If you want to rule your life with obligations to other people, that's you. — Bich Minh Nguyen

Imperialism has now reached a degree of almost scientific perfection. It uses White workers to conquer the non-white workers of The Colonies. Then, it hurls the non-white workers of one colony against those of another non-white colony. Finally, it relies on the Colored workers of the colonies to rule the White workers. Recently, White French soldiers near mutiny in the occupied Ruhr of Germany, were surrounded by French African soldiers, and colored native light-infantry were sent against White German strikers ... — Ho Chi Minh

Neither black/red/yellow nor woman but poet or writer. For many of us, the question of priorities remains a crucial issue. Being merely "a writer" without a doubt ensures one a status of far greater weight than being "a woman of color who writes" ever does. Imputing race or sex to the creative act has long been a means by which the literary establishment cheapens and discredits the achievements of non-mainstream women writers. She who "happens to be" a (non-white) Third World member, a woman, and a writer is bound to go through the ordeal of exposing her work to the abuse and praises and criticisms that either ignore, dispense with, or overemphasize her racial and sexual attributes. Yet the time has passed when she can confidently identify herself with a profession or artistic vocation without questioning and relating it to her color-woman condition. — Trinh T. Minh-ha

Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam were perfect for Lyndon Johnson: 220 million against 18 million, water buffalo and all. No risk, really. — David Douglas Duncan

I have always compared our traditions of liberty, like those of Abraham Lincoln and Ho Chi Minh. — Hanoi Hannah

Ho Chi Minh successfully accomplished his cause to free his country despite the opposition of France and the United States. This achievement required the efforts of a man that was part Lenin, part Gondi, part Confucius, and all Vietnamese. — Chris Diamond

It Went By Me something very beautiful just went by me something not to tell in words in feelings so fragile so wild something yet to tell is no longer why and when it left i can't tell. — Trinh T. Minh-ha

Speaking, writing, and discoursing are not mere acts of communication; they are above all acts of compulsion. Please follow me. Trust me, for deep feeling and understanding require total committment. — Trinh T. Minh-ha

In the Communist Party, we address problems very openly and sometimes very vocally, and we point out abuses. This is a good thing. We exercise self-criticism once a year. Although 80 percent of the members of the National Assembly are also members of the Communist Party, this does not prevent them from sharply criticizing the administrative and governmental system. — Nguyen Minh Triet

We have a secret weapon ... it is called Nationalism — Ho Chi Minh

Eisenhower managed to begin the Vietnam war by not following his normal instinct of staying out of mischief. In his memoirs, he tells us why we didn't honor the Geneva accords and hold elections in Vietnam: because some 80 percent of the country would have voted for Ho Chi Minh. This is very candid. The sort of thing one might have found in Stalin'smemoirs, had he not made ghosts even of ghosts. — Gore Vidal

Today we should make poems including iron and steel And the poet should know how to lead an attack. — Ho Chi Minh

Love other human beings as you would love yourself. — Ho Chi Minh