Juan Manuel Santos

“Anybody who doesn't see the impact of climate change is really, I would say, myopic. They don't see the reality. It's so evident that we are destroying Mother Earth. This is not the problem of one country or a few countries: it is the problem of mankind. We need to work together to stop this. Otherwise, our future generations will simply disappear.”

“That has been the concept to my life - setting very high objectives and trying to fulfil them.”

“We want to be a country with a competitive edge in the world. And a country with a solid democracy. To do that, we need to attack the social problems, and extreme poverty is probably the worst of those.”

“You will never hear me denigrating other countries.”

“I say that building peace is like building a cathedral. You have to have a solid base, and then you do it brick by brick. But the process is irreversible. There's no way back.”

“There is land in Colombia, fortunately, for everybody. We don't have to expropriate land from people who are cultivating that land legally.”

“I am a believer in free trade, fair free trade.”

“Colombia has a huge variety of plant and animal species, and we have enormous potential. Small and mid-sized companies should come to Colombia. From here, they have access to the entire Latin American market.”

“That is why every military officer fights - so that there may be peace.”

“Corruption is one of the high priorities of my agenda.”

“Simply to have peace brings huge investment.”

“I remember in 2000, when President Clinton came to Cartagena just before Plan Colombia started, the country was on the verge of becoming a failed state. Today, we are one of the most solid democracies, where institutions are working, where the scandals such as false positives have come to light because of those functioning institutions.”

“If you go around Colombia or Latin America, without doubt you will find that 80 per cent of the time, you're discussing the past and only 20 per cent about the future.”