Top 26 Quotes & Sayings by Augusto Pinochet

During 65 years, I have walked the path of duty and discipline... And today, looking back at that long path of service, my soldier's heart stirs and murmurs from deep within: Thank you. Thank you, my homeland.

I'm not a dictator. It's just that I have a grumpy face.

I regret and suffer those losses, but it's God's will. He will pardon me if I committed excesses, but I don't think I did.

Everything I did, all my actions, all of the problems I had I dedicate to God and to Chile, because I kept Chile from becoming Communist.

Sometimes democracy must be bathed in blood.

Not a single leaf moves in this country if I'm not the one moving it.

My moral and spiritual formation does not allow me to be a dictator... If I were a dictator, You can be sure that many things have happened.

He could have a thousand faults, but I do not blame anyone in particular and I despise brutality with which the Nazis acted against Israelites; but the fault is not only of Hitler, but a group of high-ranked dignitaries.

The freedoms which had been so hard won from colonial domination were being crushed by Soviet-inspired and funded military and political forces. Their clear intention was to deprive the people of their democratic freedoms. As history shows, this is what had happened in the Soviet Union and in Cuba, and continues to be the case in other parts of the world.

We have no political prisons. We have political internal exiles.

I was only an aspiring dictator. I was never a real dictator.

I'm not someone who usually sends out threats. I warn only once. The day they touch one of my men, the rule of law is over.

Today, near the end of my days, I want to say that I harbor no rancor against anybody, that I love my fatherland above all and that I take political responsibility for everything that was done which had no other goal than making Chile greater and avoiding its disintegration. I assume full political responsibility for what happened.

Rome cut off the heads of Christians and they continued to reappear one way or another. Something similar happens with Marxists.

The only solution to the issue of human rights is oblivion.

Had I been a dictator, I would still be governing.

I will die. The person who succeeds me will also have to die. But elections, you won't have.

I'm looking at them from above, because God put me there.

My library is filled with UN condemnations.

Don't forget that in the history of the world, there was a plebiscite, in which Christ and Barabbas were being judged, and the people chose Barabbas.

Executive power is exercised by the President of the Governing Board who, with the title of President of the Republic of Chile, administers the state and is the Supreme Chief of the Nation.

The rich people are those who create wealth, and you have to treat them well so they continue to give wealth.

I have lived with my conscience and my own memories for over quarter of a century since the events of 1973. These are not easy reflections for me. But I am at peace with myself, and with the Chilean people, about what happened. I am clear in my mind that the return to Chile of true democracy, and from that the true freedom to which all individual people are entitled, could not have been achieved without the removal of the Marxist government.

My face is sour. Maybe that's why they say I'm a dictator.

The nation is trying to make Chile a country of proprietors, not of proletarians.

I devalued the peso solely looking after the poor.