Augusto Pinochet Quotes

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

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

The country is safe, because we have a good intelligence service.

Remark to reporters (September 1991) when asked about the burial of 125 political opponents in 108 graves. Quoted in Chile Under Pinochet (2000) by Mark Ensalaco

Power must be vested in the armed forces, since only they have the organization and the means to fight Marxism.

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.

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.

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

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

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

We practically wiped this nation clean of Marxists.

Is it true what Contreras testified before the courts, that the president of the junta and later the president of the Republic was the direct head of DINA? I don't remember, but it is not true. It is not true and if it was, I don't remember. Contreras liked to cajole, wrap around his boss. Contreras gave the orders. It was he who managed the institution.

This is not a dictadura [dictatorship/hard rule] but a dictablanda [soft rule].

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

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