“The most important thing is the indigenous people are not vindictive by nature. We are not here to oppress anybody - but to join together and build Bolivia, with justice and equality.”

“I never wore a tie voluntarily, even though I was forced to wear one for photos when I was young and for official events at school. I used to wrap my tie in a newspaper, and whenever the teacher ch...”

“I have a lot of trouble understanding all the detail of finance and administration - but if you combine intellectual and professional capacity with a social conscience, you can change things: count...”

“In 2006, I entered the presidential palace in the main square of La Paz as the first indigenous president of Bolivia. Our government, under the slogan 'Bolivia Changes,' is committed to ending the ...”

“Sooner or later, we will have to recognise that the Earth has rights, too, to live without pollution. What mankind must know is that human beings cannot live without Mother Earth, but the planet ca...”

“The relationship between the government of the United States and social and indigenous movements has always been difficult. Not just in Bolivia but worldwide. We need to have bilateral relations ch...”

“We have got some very big problems confronting us and let us not make any mistake about it, human history in the future is fraught with tragedy ... It's only through people making a stand against t...”

“Seeds have the power to preserve species, to enhance cultural as well as genetic diversity, to counter economic monopoly and to check the advance of conformity on all its many fronts.”

“When we are surrounded by such diversity - in nature, in culture, in human spirit - how can we stand not to acknowledge it?”

“At the end of the day the only thing that stays are your words. They linger while you disappear. Hanging in the air like they're on a clothesline, oh how I wish I could let them go.”

“Only wise men look for new wisdom.”

“This person has just arrived on this planet, knows nothing about it, has no standards by which to judge it. This person does not care what it becomes. It is eager to become absolutely anything it i...”

“I've often observed that women can be the weakest link in women's rights.”

“I can hear the roar of women's silence”

“People have a greater tolerance for evil than for violence. If crooked gamboling, thieving and robing are covered over folks will tolerate it longer than out right violence, even when the violence ...”