Hồ Chí Minh > Quotes

“The U.S. directed military-political aims at present are to herd the entire population in the countryside of South Vietnam into concentration camps - fortified villages surrounded with barbed wire entanglements and moats - from which the peasants may leave only in daylight hours under the guns of the U.S - Diemist troops. The main military operations are designed to sweep the peasants up into the so-called 'strategic hamlets', the concentration camp villages. The people of South Vietnam resist this, they refuse to live like slaves. With primitive arms made by themselves and those they can capture from their oppressors they fight back. In order to increase the pressure on them, U.S. planes have of late greatly stepped up their barbaric campaign of destroying rice and other food crops by air-sprayed chemicals and thus starve the peasants into submission.”
― Hồ Chí Minh, Against US Aggression For National Salvation

“The successes recorded by our Southern compatriots show that the U.S. imperialists, no matter what modern weapons they may have, are not to be feared.”
― Hồ Chí Minh, Against US Aggression For National Salvation

“Look far ahead and ponder deeply.
Be resolute: attach and attack incessantly.
A wrong niove and even your two chariots 1 are useless;
Come the right juncture: .a pawn can bring you
success.”
― Hồ Chí Minh, The Prison Diary of Ho Chi Minh

“Whether they are committed deliberately or not, embezzlement, waste, and bureaucracy are allied with colonialism and feudalism because they hamper our war of resistance and our national reconstruction...

There are people who are enthusiastic and faithful in struggle; they fear neither dangers, hardships, nor the enemy, thus they have served the revolution well; but as soon as they hold some authority, they grow arrogant and luxurious, indulge in embezzlement, waste, and unconscious bureaucracy, thus becoming guilty in the eyes of the revolution. We must save them, help them recover their revolutionary virtues. Others, while pretending to serve the Fatherland and the people, indulge in embezzlement and waste, and harm the Fatherland and the people. We must educate them, and lead them to the revolutionary path.

Embezzlement, waste, and bureaucracy are evils left by the old society. They spring from self-interest and selfishness. They are begotten by the regime of “exploitation of man by man.”
― Hồ Chí Minh, Down with Colonialism!: Down With Colonialism!

“La guérilla n'a pas pour but de gagner de grands combats, mais plutôt de grignoter les forces de l'ennemi, de lui couper l'appétit et le sommeil, de l'éreinter, l'user moralement et matériellement pour finir par l'anéantir. Faire en sorte que, partout où il met les pieds, l'ennemi soit aux prises avec nos guérilleros, qu'il tombe sur une mine, essuie quelques coups de feu. Voici ce que les soldats français écrivent dans leurs lettres : "Au Viêt Nam, la mort nous guette dans chaque trou de roche, chaque buisson, chaque étang...”
― Hồ Chí Minh