Quotes from Juan Manuel Santos

Where do you draw the line between peace and justice? If you ask the victims, they want more justice; if you ask the potential victims, they want more peace.

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.

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.

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

Today, we must acknowledge, that war has not been won.

Waging war is much more popular than negotiating, because there you need to compromise.

To make peace, it is necessary to know how to make war.

If we act together on the drug problem, with a comprehensive vision devoid of ideological or political biases, we will be able to prevent much harm and violence!

I say this as the president of the country which has suffered more deaths, more blood and more sacrifices in this war.

I've not lived one single day of peace in Colombia, and 90 percent of people here say the same thing. We have gotten used to living in a war - we don't even react to massacres.

In any symmetrical war in today's world, it is necessary to have regional support.

There are times for making war and times for making peace.

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

When I was defense minister, I was very popular, and now that I'm president, I'm unpopular because I'm trying to make peace. It's much easier to make war and get trophies.

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

You will never hear me denigrating other countries.

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.

We in Colombia always hope for Venezuela to prosper.

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.

My ideal - and here, the sky is the limit - is to attract foreign investment via concessions.

Ten years ago, we were seen as a virtually failed state, but today we are a vibrant democracy. You can walk safely through the streets of Bogota these days.

The rebels will be thinking about retaliation, what we have to do is stop; stop and transform it into a spiral of forgiveness and reconciliation.