Ernesto Che Guevara Quotes - Revolution Quotes

Whenever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear and another hand reaches out to take up our arms.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Where a government has come into power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



The guerrilla fighter needs full help from the people of the area. This is an indispensable condition.

Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



War is always a struggle in which each contender tries to annihilate the other. Besides using force, they will have recourse to all possible tricks and stratagems to achieve the goal.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Much more definitive and much more lasting than all the gold that one can accumulate is the gratitude of a people.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Democracy is not compatible with financial oligarchy, with discrimination against Blacks and outrages by the Ku Klux Klan, or with the persecution that drove scientists like Oppenheimer from their posts, deprived the world for years of the marvelous voice of Paul Robeson, held prisoner in his own country, and sent the Rosenberg's to their deaths against the protests of a shocked world, including the appeals of many governments and of Pope Pius XII.

Democracy cannot consist solely of elections that are nearly always fictitious and managed by rich landowners and professional politicians.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Justice remains the tool of a few powerful interests; legal interpretations will continue to be made to suit the convenience of the oppressor powers.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



There are no borders in this struggle to the death.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara





Planning is one of the laws of socialism, and without it, socialism would not exist.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



The struggle against imperialism, for liberation from colonial or neocolonial shackles, which is being carried out by means of political weapons, arms, or a combination of the two, is not separate from the struggle against backwardness and poverty. Both are stages on the same road leading toward the creation of a new society of justice and plenty.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Socialism cannot exist without a change in consciousness resulting in a new fraternal attitude toward humanity, both at an individual level, within the societies where socialism is being built or has been built, and on a world scale, with regard to all peoples suffering from imperialist oppression.

How can it be “mutually beneficial” to sell at world market prices the raw materials that cost the underdeveloped countries immeasurable sweat and suffering, and to buy at world market prices the machinery produced in today's big automated factories?

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Wealth is far from being within the reach of the masses simply through the process of appropriation.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



In moments of great peril it is easy to muster a powerful response to moral stimuli; but for them to retain their effect requires the development of a consciousness in which there is a new priority of values.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



For a long time man has been trying to free himself from alienation through culture and art...

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Silence is argument carried out by other means.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel!

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



The basic clay of our work is the youth; we place our hope in it and prepare it to take the banner from our hands.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



A common argument from the mouths of capitalist spokespeople, in the ideological struggle against socialism, is that socialism, or the period of building socialism into which we have entered, is characterized by the abolition of the individual for the sake of the state.

The state sometimes makes mistakes. When one of these mistakes occurs, a decline in collective enthusiasm is reflected by a resulting quantitative decrease of the contribution of each individual, each of the elements forming the whole of the masses. Work is so paralysed that insignificant quantities are produced. It is time to make a correction.

A more structured connection with the mass is needed, and we must improve it in the course of the coming years. But as far as initiatives originating in the upper strata of the government are concerned, we are currently utilizing the almost intuitive method of sounding out general reactions to the great problems we confront.

I think the place to start is to recognize the individual's quality of incompleteness, of being an unfinished product. The vestiges of the past are brought into the present in one's consciousness, and a continual labor is necessary to eradicate them.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



In the field of ideas not involving productive activities it is easier to distinguish the division between material and spiritual necessity. For a long time man has been trying to free himself from alienation through culture and art. While he dies every day during the eight or more hours that he sells his labour, he comes to life afterwards in his spiritual activities.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



The ultimate and most important revolutionary aspiration: to see human beings liberated from their alienation.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



If you tremble indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



The great multitudes continue to develop; the new ideas continue to attain their proper force within society; the material possibilities for the full development of all members of society make the task much more fruitful. The present is a time for struggle; the future is ours.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



The change in consciousness will not take place automatically, just as it doesn't take place automatically in the economy. The alterations are slow and are not harmonious; there are periods of acceleration, pauses and even retrogressions.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Once again I feel beneath my heels the ribs of Rocinante. Once more, I'm on the road with my shield on my arm.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



In a revolution one wins or dies, if it is a real one.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



I have lived magnificent days.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Other nations of the world summon my modest efforts of assistance.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



I leave a people who received me as a son. That wounds a part of my spirit. I carry to new battlefronts the faith that you taught me, the revolutionary spirit of my people, the feeling of fulfilling the most sacred of duties: to fight against imperialism wherever it may be.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Many will call me an adventurer — and that I am, only one of a different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara





Now a willpower that I have polished with an artist's delight will sustain some shaky legs and some weary lungs. I will do it. Give a thought once in awhile to this little soldier of fortune of the twentieth century.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Your father has been a man who acted according to his beliefs and certainly has been faithful to his convictions.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Above all, try always to be able to feel deeply any injustice committed against any person in any part of the world. It is the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Remember, there are still many years of struggle ahead, and even when you are a woman, you will have to do your part in the struggle. Meanwhile, you have to prepare yourself, be very revolutionary — which at your age means to learn a lot, as much as possible, and always be ready to support just causes.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



You should fight to be among the best in school. The very best in every sense and you already know what that means; study and revolutionary attitude. In other words: good conduct, seriousness, love for the revolution, comradeship. I was not that way at your age but I lived in a different society, where man was an enemy of man. Now you have the privilege of living in another era and you must be worthy of it.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



The beginnings will not be easy; they shall be extremely difficult.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Along the way, I had the opportunity to pass through the dominions of the United Fruit, convincing me once again of just how terrible these capitalist octopuses are. I have sworn before a picture of the old and mourned comrade Stalin that I won't rest until I see these capitalist octopuses annihilated.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



I am not Christ or a philanthropist, old lady, I am all the contrary of a Christ.... I fight for the things I believe in, with all the weapons at my disposal and try to leave the other man dead so that I don't get nailed to a cross or any other place.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



It was not capitalism's internal contradictions that, having exhausted all possibilities, caused the system to explode. The struggle for liberation from a foreign oppressor; the misery caused by external events such as war, whose consequences privileged classes place on the backs of the exploited; liberation movements aimed at overthrowing neo-colonial regimes — these are the usual factors in unleashing this kind of explosion.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



If it is an element of liberation for Latin America, I believe that it should have demonstrated that. Until now, I have not been aware of any such demonstration. The IMF performs an entirely different function: precisely that of ensuring that capital based outside of Latin America controls all of Latin America.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, you are only going to kill a man.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



I am not interested in dry economic socialism. We are fighting against misery, but we are also fighting against alienation. One of the fundamental objectives of Marxism is to remove interest, the factor of individual interest, and gain, from people's psychological motivations. Marx was preoccupied both with economic factors and with their repercussions on the spirit. If communism isn't interested in this too, it may be a method of distributing goods, but it will never be a revolutionary way of life.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Live your life not celebrating victories, but overcoming defeats.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



Knowledge makes us accountable.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara



I was born in Argentina; this is no secret for anyone. I am Cuban as well as Argentinean and, if the highly illustrated lordships of Latin America may not feel offended, I feel such a patriotism for Latin America, for any country in Latin America, that in the moment it might be necessary, I would be ready to yield my life for the liberation of any Latin American nation, without asking anybody anything, without demanding anything, without exploiting anyone.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara