Top 30 Ingrid Betancourt Quotes

I love Colombia’s military. I love my country.

These years after my liberation were years of reconstruction, and I think I made the right decisions… I mean, I lost everything: my life; my father died; I didn’t know anything about my children.

I want to tell President Sarkozy – and through him, all the French people – that they were our support, our light.

I continue with the illusion of serving Colombia. Only God knows if it were to be from the presidency.

At first, I didn’t want to accept that I had been abducted. I kept thinking, ‘Next week, I’ll be freed.’

After six years without seeing one, I love just seeing a smile – every smile I see gives me hope.

The relationship with time changes when you’re captive.

When you have a chain around your neck, you have to keep your head down and try to accept your fate without succumbing entirely to humiliation, without forgetting who you are.

France is my home; you are my family. I am carrying all of you in my heart.

I was in chains all the time, 24 hours a day, for three years. I tried to wear those chains with dignity, even if I felt that it was unbearable.

In the free world, your days pass very quickly because you have so many things to do, and you’re in control of your life.

Reconciliation is a national decision that has to be debated and a consensus made among Colombians.

It’s easy when you have suffered to feel the link with what others have gone through.

You need tremendous spirituality to stop yourself falling into the abyss.

During my captivity, I felt abandoned by everyone apart from my family and supporters, because there was no part of the political spectrum that would want me released.

It’s not easy to talk about things that are still hurting.

I know that I have to give testimony about all the things I lived, but I need time.

I don’t want to be submerged by depression.

I didn’t want to accept that people would forget me, that the government wouldn’t do anything to negotiate our freedom. After a year, I came to understand that not only had one year passed, many more would come.

Living in a jungle is not something easy; it’s not something that you just adapt yourself to. And I think that in my case, I didn’t want to adapt.

The only thing I’ve settled in my mind is that I want to forgive, and forgiveness comes with forgetting.

I have shed many tears of pain and indignation.

We have to be aware of our fragilities as human beings – when we see cruelty, to understand that in certain conditions, we could be cruel, too.

I think that women are peacemakers by genetics, because we are the ones who stay at home and because we are the ones who suffer with the aftermath of war.

I want to serve my country, but not necessarily in the political arena.

I continue to aspire to serve Colombia as president.

Forgiveness is a very personal and intimate thing. Forgiveness is not something that you can speak for others because it includes not only your desire and will, your reflection and intellect, but also your emotions.

In Colombia, women are a huge factor for reconciliation. I have seen many strong women advocating for negotiations. I remember when the paramilitary were active, there were women close to the paramilitary asking for negotiations.

More than a victim, I am a survivor of a dehumanization process.

In the jungle, faith also became something very real; it helped me to understand what was happening to me and changed my questions.