Jose de San Martin

My best friend is he who rights my wrongs or reproaches my mistakes.

Of what my Granadiers are capable, only I know — who they equal will exist, who exceeds them won't.

Your coarse impudence in making me a proposition to employ my sword in a civil war is simply incomprehensible. You insolent scoundrel! Do you realize it has never been dipped in American blood?

I will be what I ought to be, and if I am not, I will be nothing.

My sword will never be drawn without reason, nor sheathed without honor.

I had rather be a good citizen in a free country than a king in a nation of slaves.

A liberal-constitutional monarchy was the best hope for stability in the new nations of Spanish America.

I proposed that Peru should be converted into an independent monarchy. The negotiations led to nothing.

Bolívar was in favor of forming a series of republics in the newly independent nations, whereas San Martín preferred the European system of rule and wanted to put monarchies in place.