You are wrong. The state and its existence are essential before everything else. All this preoccupation with liberty is not serious. - Habib Bourguiba

Bourguiba quoting Muhammad:
"Break the fast, and you will be stronger to confront the enemy. ... humiliating backward condition of our country."

The only Jews who interest us are our fellow citizens. ... Basically and profoundly, we are with the West.

At the moment of a revolution there is no question of setting up a democracy like that in America. If they accuse me of dictatorship, I accept. I am creating a nation. Liberty must be suppressed until the end of the war in Algeria—until the nation becomes homogeneous.