António de Oliveira Salazar

Prime Minister of Portugal (1889-1970)

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Momentum16.3
Portugal rank#21

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Fame68.8
Momentum16.3
Portugal rank#21
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Lived 1889–1970, aged 81Portugal

Portugal PoliticiansPolitician

Wikipedia
84 languages
Cross-language footprint
Rank in Portugal
#21
Politicians
Era
1889–1970
Aged 81
Known for
Lusitanian Illusion
2010

Summary

Updated 2026-06-21

An economics professor who balanced Portugal's budget in a year, then stayed for 36. Salazar built one of Europe's longest-lived dictatorships not through rallies or uniforms but through censorship, a secret police, and the cold conviction that politics itself was the disease.

Biography

About

António de Oliveira Salazar taught political economy at the University of Coimbra before entering government as finance minister after the 1926 coup, stabilizing Portugal's currency and producing the first of many budget surpluses within a year. By 1932 he was President of the Council of Ministers, reframing the military's Ditadura Nacional as the corporatist Estado Novo—a regime opposed to communism, socialism, liberalism, and capitalism alike, rooted in conservative nationalism and the motto "God, Fatherland and Family." He kept the military out of politics, the Church at arm's length throug…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from António de Oliveira Salazar

António de Oliveira Salazar

said13 Apr 1961

To Angola, quickly and with strength!

— On April 13, 1961, quoted in Salazar: biographical study - page 154; of Franco Nogueira - Published by Atlantis Publishing, 1977

António de Oliveira Salazar

said1932

Half a dozen slaps the time.

— Quoted in The fascist Salazar: Salazar and national-syndicalism: the story of a conflict, 1932-1935 - page 90, of John Medina - Published

António de Oliveira Salazar

saidundated

Do not discuss God and virtue. Do not discuss the homeland and its history. Do not discuss the authority and prestige. Do not discuss the family and its moral.

— Quoted in Salazar: Biographical Study - page 368; of Franco Nogueira - Published by Atlantis Publishing, 1977

António de Oliveira Salazar

saidundated