"[T]he credo of Algeria's political and diplomatic action will be the liquidation of colonialism in both its classic and disguised forms."
Ahmed Ben Bella at his inaugural speech at the UN in 1962. As quoted in Hakim Adi and Marika Sherwood, Pan-African History, Routledge, 2003.
"This wonderful county had been at war for seven years and had lost a million dead; it was still scarred and bleeding, and its people were poverty-stricken. It has got to be rebuilt, on new foundations, from top to bottom. Would fate allow me the time in which to do it."
Ahmed Ben Bella, on 19 June 1965 just before he was ousted by Colonel Houari Boumédiène, as quoted in Robert Merle's Ahmed Ben Bella, New York, Walker and Co., 1967.
"Every Algerian is a potential guerrilla if he could get a gun."
Ahmed Ben Bella, as quoted in Neil Hamilton's Founders of Modern Nations: A Biographical Dictionary, ABC-CLIO, 1996.
"[A]lthough it is hard work it is also inspiring, and there is beauty in the idea of transforming even a minute portion of the Earth's surface into fertile, productive soil."
Ahmed Ben Bella describes his agricultural policy, as quoted in Robert Merle's Ahmed Ben Bella, New York, Walker and Co., 1967.
"Algerians such as myself who do not accept this estrangement from the Arabic language, nevertheless notice it in the deep disquiet which they experience when they try to give expression to their ideas in French, while at the same time they 'feel' in Arabic. A state of perpetual divorce is thus established in us, between the head and the heart, and between the intellect and the emotions."
Ahmed Ben Bella, who didn't learn how to read or write in Arabic until he was in prison. As quoted in Robert Merle's Ahmed Ben Bella, New York, Walker and Co., 1967.
