Sukarno

“Yes, definitely we want to see A or B or C and so forth live safely and soundly. But as mortal creatures, they will disappear in the end. No, we are not struggling above all else for mortal individuals, but rather for the idea of the glorious and powerful nation which sustains the eighty million Indonesians.”

“I always start from the stand that it is imperialism that needs us, not we who need the imperialists.”

“Hatta always gave the impression of rain. If I was in a real good mood and full of ideas and then happened to encounter Hatta, I felt I was suddenly surprised by a shower of rain and got wet all over the body. My good mood was gone, and also my ideas.”

“We are living in a world of fear. The life of man today is corroded and made bitter by fear: fear of the future, fear of the hydrogen bomb, fear of ideologies. Perhaps this fear is a greater danger than the danger itself because it is fear, which drives men to act thoughtlessly, to act dangerously.”

“Insofar as Pancasila is concerned, I am only its formulator: a formulator of those feelings which have been present silently in the heart of the Indonesian people.”

“No one shrieked, 'We want Bung Hatta.' I did not need him. Just as also I did not need Sjahrir, who refused to show himself at the time of the reading of the Proclamation. Indeed, I could do it myself, and indeed, I did it alone.”

“If Marcos wants to aid Malaysia, that's his business, but we will continue to crush Malaysia, even if we have to fight alone.”

“Am I not peaceful? We want to be free - completely free. Free to be free. We want to be left alone.”

“Crush Malaysia! Indonesia may change its tactics, but our goal will remain the same.”

“Never, ever forget history.”

“Bebek berjalan berbondong-bondong, akan tetapi burung elang terbang sendirian.”

“To intoxicate the masses until they were heady with the wine of inspiration was all I lived for. To me, this was elixir... I wax lyrical. I literally am overcome, and this is transmitted to my listeners.”

“I myself am sometimes fed up with Hatta's policies. Hatta and I sometimes bug each other, but omitting Hatta from the Proclamation Text... that is the action of a coward!”

“What, exactly, did Sjahrir do for the Republic? ... His entire underground effort can be summed up by saying that he sat quietly and safely away somewhere listening to a clandestine radio.”

“I am not an economist... I am not a business technician. I am a revolutionary, and I do what is right for an economic revolutionary.”

“If I am not mistaken, it was a British poet who said that 'no one is properly dressed unless he wears a smile.'”

“If some nation says to us, 'You can have aid, but you have to end confrontation,' then I say, 'Go to hell with your aid.'”

“It has been the case for some time that I have made myself dizzy thinking about the fact that the implementation of the Three-fold Program of the government, above all in the area of food and clothing, has been experiencing difficulties.”

“To me, both the Declaration of Independence and the Communist Manifesto contain underlying truths, but the West doesn't permit a middle road.”

“Our socialism does not include extreme materialistic concepts, since Indonesia is primarily a God-fearing, God-loving nation. Our socialism is a mixture. We draw political equality from the American Declaration of Independence. We draw spiritual equality from Islam and Christianity. We draw scientific equality from Marx.”