Che Guevara quotes

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

#Fall #Apples #History

I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves.
-- Che Guevara

#People #Dictator

We must strive everyday so that love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.
-- Che Guevara

#Moving #Humanity #Everyday

Every person has the truth in his heart. No matter how complicated his circumstances, no matter how others look at him from the outside, and no matter how deep or shallow the truth dwells in his heart, once his heart is pieced with a crystal needle, the truth will gush forth like a geyser.
-- Che Guevara

#Heart #Looks #Matter

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.
-- Che Guevara

#Struggle #Government #Peaceful

A new era will dawn in Africa, when the impoverished masses of a nation rise up to rescue their right to a decent life from the hands of the ruling oligarchies.
-- Che Guevara

#Hands #Dawn #Oligarchy

Be realistic, demand the impossible!
-- Che Guevara

#Demand #Impossible #Realistic

It's a sad thing not to have friends, but it is even sadder not to have enemies.
-- Che Guevara

#Enemy

I knew that the moment the great governing spirit strikes the blow to divide all humanity into just two opposing factions, I would be on the side of the common people
-- Che Guevara

#Blow #Two #People

Better to die standing, than to live on your knees.
-- Che Guevara

#Knees #Standing

The true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.
-- Che Guevara

#Love #Feelings #Revolutionary

In a revolution, one triumphs or dies.
-- Che Guevara

#Triumph #Revolution

And then many things became very clear... we learned perfectly that the life of a single human being is worth millions of times more than all the property of the richest man on earth.
-- Che Guevara

#Men #Earth #Clear

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

#Democracy #Election #Rich

The interests of the IMF represent the big international interests that today seem to be established and concentrated in Wall Street.
-- Che Guevara

#Wall #Imf #Today

The first commandment for every good explorer is that an expedition has two points: the point of departure and the point of arrival. If your intention is to make the second theoretical point coincide with the actual point of arrival, don't think about the means -- because the journey is a virtual space that finishes when it finishes, and there are as many means as there are different ways of 'finishing.' That is to say, the means are endless.
-- Che Guevara

#Mean #Journey #Thinking

We have no right to believe that freedom can be won without struggle.
-- Che Guevara

#Believe #Struggle #Republican

Silence is argument carried out by other means.
-- Che Guevara

#Positive #Witty #Powerful

Live your life not celebrating victories, but overcoming defeats.
-- Che Guevara

#Life #Victory #Overcoming

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

#Determination #Fall #Gun

To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary.  These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail.  This is a revolution!  And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.
-- Che Guevara

#Hate #Men #Squad

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

#Life #Death #Courage

The stars drew light across the night sky in that little mountain village, and the silence and the cold made the darkness vanish away. It was - I don't know how to explain it - as if everything solid melted away into the ether, eliminating all individualtiy and absorbing us, rigid, into the immense darkness. Not a single cloud to lend perspective to the space blocked any portion of the starry sky.
-- Che Guevara

#Stars #Night #Clouds

...I also know - and this won't alter the course of history or your personal view of me - that you will die with a clenched fist and a tense jaw, the epitome of hatred and struggle, because you are not a symbol (some inanimate example) but a genuine member of the society to be destroyed; the spirit of the beehive speaks through your mouth and motivates your actions. You are as useful as I am, but you are not aware of how useful your contribution is to the society that sacrifices you.
-- Che Guevara

#Struggle #Sacrifice #Views

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.
-- Che Guevara

#Believe #Fighting #Men

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.
-- Che Guevara

#Hands #Umpires #Political

Man truly achieves his full human condition when he produces without being compelled by the physical necessity of selling himself as a commodity.
-- Che Guevara

#Men #Commodity #Selling

What do we leave behind when we cross each frontier? Each moment seems split in two: melancholy for what was left behind and the excitement of entering a new land.
-- Che Guevara

#Land #Two #Splits

The best form of saying is being
-- Che Guevara

#Leadership #Form

Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel.
-- Che Guevara

#Leader #Anarchy #Dictator

I have come to communism because of daddy Stalin and nobody must come and tell me that I mustn’t read Stalin. I read him when it was very bad to read him. That was another time. And because I’m not very bright, and a hard-headed person, I keep on reading him. Especially in this new period, now that it is worse to read him. Then, as well as now, I still find a Seri of things that are very good.
-- Che Guevara

#Reading #Daddy #Communism

Words that do not match deeds are not important.
-- Che Guevara

#Work #Important #Deeds

The merit of Marx is that he suddenly produces a qualitative change in the history of social thought. He interprets history, understands its dynamic, predicts the future, but in addition to predicting it (which would satisfy his scientific obligation), he expresses a revolutionary concept: the world must not only be interpreted, it must be transformed. Man ceases to be the slave and tool of his environment and converts himself into the architect of his own destiny.
-- Che Guevara

#Destiny #Men #Tools

This is not a story of heroic feats, or merely the narrative of a cynic; at least I do not mean it to be. It is a glimpse of two lives running parallel for a time, with similar hopes and convergent dreams.
-- Che Guevara

#Running #Dream #Mean

Those who kill their own children and discriminate daily against them because of the color of their skin; those who let the murderers of blacks remain free, protecting them, and furthermore punishing the black population because they demand their legitimate rights as free men - how can those who do this consider themselves guardians of freedom?
-- Che Guevara

#Children #Men #Rights

In a revolution one wins or dies, if it is a real one
-- Che Guevara

#Real #Winning #Revolution

My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood… Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any surrendered enemy that falls in my hands! With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a ***** howl!
-- Che Guevara

#Crazy #Fall #Fighting

I would rather die standing up to live life on my knees.
-- Che Guevara

#Live Life #Knees #Standing

There is no other definition of socialism valid for us than that of the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.
-- Che Guevara

#Men #Definitions #Socialism

You know, comrade Pachman, I don't enjoy being a Minister, I would rather play chess like you, or make a revolution in Venezuela.
-- Che Guevara

#Play #Politics #Chess

It is a revolution that came to power with its own army and on the ruins of the army of oppression.
-- Che Guevara

#Army #Revolution #Ruins

The question is one of fighting the causes and not just being satisfied with getting rid of the effects.
-- Che Guevara

#Fighting #Justice #Causes

Youth should learn to think and act as a mass.  It is criminal to think as individuals!
-- Che Guevara

#Thinking #Criminals #Youth

A smoke in times of rest is a great companion to the solitary soldier.
-- Che Guevara

#Soldier #Companion #Solitary

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.
-- Che Guevara

#Octopus #Capitalist #Comrade

Every day People straighten up the hair, why not the heart?
-- Che Guevara

#Motivational #Passion #Heart

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.
-- Che Guevara

#Life #Thinking #Feelings

Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world.
-- Che Guevara

#Feelings #World #Injustice

If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.
-- Che Guevara

#Tyrants #History #Justice

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.
-- Che Guevara

#Beautiful #Trying #Quality

There are no boundaries in this struggle to the death. We cannot be indifferent to what happens anywhere in the world, for a victory by any country over imperialism is our victory; just as any country's defeat is a defeat for all of us.
-- Che Guevara

#Country #Freedom #Struggle

I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.
-- Che Guevara

#Men #Coward #Dictator

It's not my fault if reality is Marxist
-- Che Guevara

#Reality #Faults #Marxist

Let the world change you and you can change the world
-- Che Guevara

#Life #World #Changing The World

The walls of the educational system must come down. Education should not be a privilege, so the children of those who have money can study.
-- Che Guevara

#Children #Wall #Educational

Democracy is not compatible with financial oligarchy, with discrimination against Blacks and outrages by the Ku Klux Klan.
-- Che Guevara

#Ku Klux Klan #Democracy #Oligarchy

If any person has a good word for the previous government that is good enough for me to have him shot.
-- Che Guevara

#Government #Good Enough #Shots

The negro is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations.
-- Che Guevara

#America #Dreamer #Saving

The desire to sacrifice an entire lifetime to the noblest of ideals serves no purpose if one works alone.
-- Che Guevara

#Sacrifice #Desire #Purpose

A revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate. We must create the pedagogy of the The Wall!
-- Che Guevara

#Wall #Hate #Machines

The ***** is indolent and lazy, and spends his money on frivolities, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent.
-- Che Guevara

#Intelligent #Lazy #Organized

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

#Important #Revolutionary #Aspiration

When forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law, peace is considered already broken.
-- Che Guevara

#Law #Broken #Oppression

One must have a large dose of humanity, a large dose of a sense of justice and truth in order to avoid dogmatic extremes, cold scholasticism, or an isolation from the masses. We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity is transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.
-- Che Guevara

#Moving #Order #Justice

It is an illusion to think that the matter cannot be resolved through words.
-- Che Guevara

#Thinking #Matter #Illusion

Direct aggression against Cuba would mean nuclear war. The Americans speak about such aggression as if they did not know or did not want to accept this fact. I have no doubt they would lose such a war.
-- Che Guevara

#War #Mean #Doubt

We must not return to the practice of hiding our defects so they may not be seen. That would be neither honest nor revolutionary.
-- Che Guevara

#Wise #Practice #Would Be

How can it be "mutually beneficial" to sell at world market prices the raw materials that cost the underdeveloped countries immeasurable sweat and suffering.
-- Che Guevara

#Country #Sweat #Suffering

Peaceful coexistence cannot be limited to the powerful countries if we want to ensure world peace.
-- Che Guevara

#Country #Powerful #Peaceful

I am not Christ or a philanthropist, old lady, I am all the contrary of a Christ...
-- Che Guevara

#Dictator #Christ #Old Lady