67 Quotes by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

Latin America is convinced that, starting with South America, our way forward is to consolidate the process of integration: not theoretical integration - the integration of speeches - but physical integration, with infrastructure, with roads, with railways, with communications, with energy.

I learned during my term and in the presidency that we should not discuss about assumptions or insinuations. If one day I have to do something against the U.S., the first one to get to know what I was going to do would be the president of the U.S.

The financial system has to be regulated, we have to end with the tax havens, and it's necessary that the central banks in the world should control a little bit the banks' financing because they cannot bypass a certain range of leverage.

I have stated publicly, I want the same things for Iran that I want for Brazil. I want them to use and develop their nuclear energy for peaceful means.

I know what unemployment means because I was unemployed for one-and-a-half years, and I know the drama that the worker and unemployed worker faces. I know the world of the labor union better than I think anyone else does.

Brazil is a country that has rich people, as you have in New York City, as you have in Berlin or in London. But we also have poor people like in Bangladesh or in African suburbs.

No one has to agree with everything that someone else says. But in state-to-state relations, we have to understand that we can help each other much more doing it that way. We have to be more generous.

Venezuela needs to develop; economic growth is essential for the country after so many years of lagging behind.

When President Kirchner complains, I often sympathise with him, because Argentina was deindustrialised, and it is perfectly normal for the president of a country to try to get industry back.