Ho Chi Minh Quotes

Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung, also known as Nguyễn Tất Thành, Nguyễn Ái Quốc, Bác Hồ or simply Bác, was a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader who was Chairman and First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam. He was also Prime Minister and President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam . He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 as well as the People's Army of Vietnam and the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.

Hồ Chí Minh led the Việt Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the Communist-ruled Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at the battle of Điện Biên Phủ. He officially stepped down from power in 1965 due to health problems. After the war, Saigon, the former capital of the Republic of Vietnam, was renamed Hồ Chí Minh City.

Any description of Hồ Chí Minh's life before he came to power in Vietnam is necessarily fraught with ambiguity. He is known to have used at least 50 and perhaps as many as 200 pseudonyms. Both his place and date of birth are subjects of academic debate since neither is known with certainty. At least four existing official biographies vary on names, dates, places and other hard facts while unofficial biographies vary even more widely.

✵ 19. May 1890 – 2. September 1969
Ho Chi Minh photo
Ho Chi Minh: 34   quotes 16   likes

Famous Ho Chi Minh Quotes

“Nothing is more precious than Independence and Liberty.”

Political slogan, quoted in Ho Chi Minh and His Vietnam : A Personal Memoir (1972) by Jean Sainteny, p. 172

Variant translation: Nothing is more valuable than freedom and independence.

World Marxist Review: Problems of Peace and Socialism (1979), p. 91

“Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom… Independence without freedom is worse than no independence.”

As quoted in Vietnam: The Betrayal of a Revolution https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1991/10/20/vietnam-the-betrayal-of-a-revolution/baef22ef-5ee7-43f0-97d3-7dc02ab24533/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.865c3958cb61 (20 October 1991), by Bui Tin

Ho Chi Minh Quotes about people

“The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilise all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their independence and liberty.”

Vietnamese Proclamation of Independence (2 September 1945), Ho Chi Minh, Selected Works (1960-1962), Vol. 3, pp. 17-21
Context: A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eighty years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the Fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent.
For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, solemnly declare to the world that Vietnam has the right to be a free and independent country and in fact it already has been so. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilise all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their independence and liberty.

“A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eighty years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the Fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent.”

Context: A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eighty years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the Fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent.
For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, solemnly declare to the world that Vietnam has the right to be a free and independent country and in fact it already has been so. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilise all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their independence and liberty.

Vietnamese Proclamation of Independence (2 September 1945), Ho Chi Minh, Selected Works (1960-1962), Vol. 3, pp. 17-21

Ho Chi Minh Quotes about homeland

Ho Chi Minh Quotes

“Remember that the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability.”

As quoted in From Colonialism to Communism : A Case History of North Vietnam (1964) by Văn Chí Hoàng, p. 37

“The Trotskyists are not only the enemies of Communism, they are also the enemies of democracy and of progress. They are the most infamous traitors and spies.”

From a letter sent to the Communist Party of Vietnam, quoted in Vietnam & Trotskyism https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/vietnam/pirani/hochiminh.htm (1987)

“Though frontiers and mountains stand between us, Proletarians of the whole world come together as one family.”

Third National Congress of the Vietnam Workers' Party (Sept. 9, 1960)
Ho Chi Minh on Revolution, Selected Writings, 1920-66
1960's

“Revolutionary morality consists in absolute loyalty to the Party and the people.”

"On Revolutionary Morality" (1958)
1950's, On Revolutionary Morality (1958)

“In practice, the enemy has been making much more propaganda for us than we have ourselves.”

Instructions Given at the Conference (Fall 1950)
1950's

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