Welcome to our collection of quotes by Ho Chi Minh. We hope you enjoy pondering them and please share widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh (Vietnamese: [hò cǐ mīŋ̟] (listen), Saigon: [hò cǐ mɨ̄n]; Chữ Hán: 胡志明; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), born Nguyễn Sinh Cung, also known as Nguyễn Tất Thành, Nguyễn Ái Quốc, Bác Hồ, or simply Bác ('Uncle', pronounced [ʔɓaːk̚˦˥]), was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician. He served as Prime Minister of North Vietnam from 1945 to 1955 and President from 1945 until his death in 1969. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, he served as Chairman and First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam. He was born in Nghệ An province, in Central Vietnam.
Hồ Chí Minh led the Việt Minh independence movement from 1941 onward. It was supposed to be an umbrella group for all parties fighting for Vietnam's independence but was dominated by the Communist Party. Hồ Chí Minh led the Communist-ruled Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, defeating the French Union in 1954 at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ, ending the First Indochina War. He was a key figure in the People's Army of Vietnam and the Việt Cộng during the Vietnam War, which lasted from 1955 to 1975. North Vietnam defeated South Vietnam and the US military forces, and Vietnam was officially unified in 1976. Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in his honor. Ho officially stepped down from power in 1965 due to health problems and died in 1969.
The details of Hồ Chí Minh's life before he came to power in Vietnam are uncertain. He is known to have used between 50: 582 and 200 pseudonyms. Information on his birth and early life is ambiguous and subject to academic debate. At least four existing official biographies vary on names, dates, places, and other hard facts while unofficial biographies vary even more widely.
Aside from being a politician, Ho was also a writer, a poet, and a journalist. He wrote several books, articles and poems in Chinese, Vietnamese and French.
Colonial atrocities have prepared the soil; it is for socialists to sow the seeds of revolution.
If you do not condemn colonialism, if you do not side with the colonial people, what kind of revolution are you waging?
Remember that the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability.
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.
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.
You will kill ten of us, we will kill one of you, but in the end, you will tire of it first.
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.
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.
To reap a return in ten years, plant trees. To reap a return in 100, cultivate the people.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Remember, the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability.