Che Guevara Quotes:

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

source: - Ernesto Che Guevara, Ernesto Guevara (2000). “Che Guevara Speaks”, Pathfinder Press

Topics: Fall, Apples, History, Revolutionary Leaders

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

Topics: People, Dictator, Liberators

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.

Topics: 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.

Topics: Heart, Looks, Matter, Geysers

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.

Topics: Struggle, Government, Peaceful, Indignation, Outbreaks

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.

Topics: Hands, Dawn, Oligarchy, Decent Life

Be realistic, demand the impossible!

Topics: Demand, Impossible, Realistic, Guerrillas

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

Topics: Enemy, Sad Things

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

Topics: Blow, Two, People

Better to die standing, than to live on your knees.

Topics: Knees, Standing

The true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.

source: - Ernesto Guevara, David Deutschmann (2003). “Che Guevara Reader: Writings on Politics & Revolution”, p.225, Ocean Press

Topics: Love, Feelings, Revolutionary

In a revolution, one triumphs or dies.

Topics: 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.

Topics: Men, Earth, Clear

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

source: - "Economics Cannot be Separated from Politics". Quoting "Declaration of Havana". Speech at Punta del Este, www.marxists.org. August 08, 1961.

Topics: Democracy, Election, Rich

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

Topics: 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.

Topics: Mean, Journey, Thinking

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

source: - Ernesto Che Guevara, Ernesto Guevara (2000). “Che Guevara Speaks”, Pathfinder Press

Topics: Believe, Struggle, Republican

Silence is argument carried out by other means.

source: - "Secrets to a Richer Life: Illuminating Wisdom from the Human Family on the 12 Ultimate Questions". Book by Earl Ernest Guile, 2005.

Topics: Positive, Witty, Powerful

Live your life not celebrating victories, but overcoming defeats.

Topics: Life, Victory, Overcoming

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

Topics: 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.

Topics: Hate, Men, Squad, Bourgeois

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

Topics: Life, Death, Courage, Live With Passion, Willing To Die

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.

Topics: Stars, Night, Clouds, Starry Sky, Night Sky

...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.

Topics: Struggle, Sacrifice, Views, Personal Views, Beehives

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.

Topics: Believe, Fighting, Men, Philanthropist

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.

Topics: Hands, Umpires, Political, Battle Cry, Receptive

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

Topics: 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.

Topics: Land, Two, Splits

The best form of saying is being

Topics: Leadership, Form

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

Topics: Leader, Anarchy, Dictator

Words that do not match deeds are not important.

Topics: 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.

Topics: Destiny, Men, Tools, Qualitative

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.

Topics: Running, Dream, Mean, Two Lives

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?

Topics: Children, Men, Rights

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

Topics: Real, Winning, Revolution, Real Ones

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!

Topics: Crazy, Fall, Fighting, Savoring

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

Topics: 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.

Topics: 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.

Topics: Play, Politics, Chess, Playing Chess

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

Topics: Army, Revolution, Ruins

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

Topics: Fighting, Justice, Causes

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

Topics: Thinking, Criminals, Youth

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

Topics: Soldier, Companion, Solitary

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

Topics: 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.

Topics: Life, Thinking, Feelings

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

Topics: Feelings, World, Injustice

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

Topics: Tyrants, History, Justice, Indignation, Comrade

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.

source: - "Last Letter from Papa". Letter by Che Guevara to his Children, 1965.

Topics: 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.

Topics: Country, Freedom, Struggle

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

Topics: Men, Coward, Dictator, Famous Last Words, Dying Last Words

It's not my fault if reality is Marxist

Topics: Reality, Faults, Marxist

Let the world change you and you can change the world

Topics: 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.

source: - "'The University Should Color Itself Black, Mulatto, Worker and Peasant'". Speech to the University of Las Villas, www.themilitant.com. December 28, 1959.

Topics: Children, Wall, Educational

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

Topics: Ku Klux Klan, Democracy, Oligarchy, Compatible

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

Topics: 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.

Topics: America, Dreamer, Saving, Frivolity

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

Topics: Sacrifice, Desire, Purpose

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

Topics: Wall, Hate, Machines

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

Topics: Intelligent, Lazy, Organized, Frivolity

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

Topics: Important, Revolutionary, Aspiration

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

Topics: Law, Broken, Oppression, Guerrilla Warfare

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.

Topics: Moving, Order, Justice, Scholasticism

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

Topics: 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.

Topics: 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.

Topics: 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.

Topics: Country, Sweat, Suffering, Underdeveloped Countries

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

Topics: Country, Powerful, Peaceful, Peaceful Coexistence, Powerful Countries

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

Topics: Dictator, Christ, Old Lady

To execute a man we don't need proof of his guilt. We only need proof that it's necessary to execute him. It's that simple.

Topics: Simple, Men, Guilt

If you have the capacity to tremble with indignation every time that an injustice is committed in the world, then we are comrades.

Topics: World, Injustice, Capacity

To accomplish much you must first lose everything.

Topics: Accomplishment, Firsts, Accomplish

Mexicans are a band of illiterate Indians.

Topics: Band, Illiterate

We must bear in mind that imperialism is a world system, the last stage of capitalism-and it must be defeated in a world confrontation. The strategic end of this struggle should be the destruction of imperialism. Our share, the responsibility of the exploited and underdeveloped of the world, is to eliminate the foundations of imperialism: our oppressed nations, from where they extract capital, raw materials, technicians, and cheap labor, and to which they export new capital-instruments of domination-arms and all kinds of articles, thus submerging us in an absolute dependence.

source: - Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.172, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Topics: Freedom, Struggle, Responsibility, Cheap Labor

The negro has maintained his racial purity by his well known habit of avoiding baths

Topics: Baths, Purity, Well Known

The best form of saying is doing.

source: - "Che Guevara Reader: Writings on Politics & Revolution".

Topics: Leadership, Form

A country that does not know how to read and write is easy to deceive.

Topics: Country, Writing, Doe

Let's be realistic. Let's do the impossible!

Topics: Impossible, Realistic

One has to grow hard but without ever losing tenderness.

source: - "Essential Care: An Ethics of Human Nature". Book by Leonardo Boff, p. 82, 2008.

Topics: Losing, Grows, Hard

Words without deeds are worthless.

Topics: Deeds, Worthless

Everyday you have to fight so that love for humanity can be transformed into concrete deeds, into acts that set an example, that mobilize.

Topics: Fighting, Humanity, Everyday, Love For Humanity

The U.S. is the great enemy of mankind! Against those hyenas there is no option but extermination! If the nuclear missiles had remained (in Cuba) we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S. including New York City!

Topics: New York, Heart, Cities, Hyenas, Extermination

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

source: - "On Development". Speech delivered at the plenary session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, www.marxists.org. March 25, 1964.

Topics: Powerful, Justice, Tools

How is it possible to feel nostalgia for a world I never knew?

source: - "The Motorcycle Diaries", www.imdb.com. 2004.

Topics: World, Nostalgia, Feels

Americans are given the sole option of electing their jailer for four years and sometimes do him the honour of re-electing him.

Topics: Years, Four, Sometimes, Jailer

Our youth must always be free, discussing and exchanging ideas concerned with what is happening throughout the entire world.

source: - "On Revolutionary Medicine". Speech delivered to the Cuban Militia, www.marxists.org. August 19, 1960.

Topics: Ideas, World, Youth, Exchanging Ideas, Guerrilla Warfare

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

Topics: Men, Revolution, Spirit

One must endure without losing tenderness.

Topics: Losing, Endure, Tenderness

We must carry the war into every corner the enemy happens to carry it, to his home, to his centers of entertainment: a total war. It is necessary to prevent him from having a moment of peace, a quiet moment outside his barracks or even inside; we must attack him wherever he may be, make him feel like a cornered beast wherever he may move. Then his moral fiber shall begin to decline, but we shall notice how the signs of decadence begin to disappear.

source: - Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.174, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Topics: War, Moving, Home, Cornered, Decadence

We must do away with all newspapers. A revolution cannot be accomplished with freedom of the press.

Topics: Revolution, Newspapers, Accomplished, Freedom Of The Press

The blacks, those magnificent examples of the African race who have conserved their racial purity by a lack of affinity with washing, have seen their patch invaded by a different kind of slave: The Portuguese. the black is indolent and fanciful, he spends his money on frivolity and drink; the European comes from a tradition of working and saving which follows him to this corner of America and drives him to get ahead.

Topics: Race, America, Black, Portuguese, African Race

We are overcome by anguish at this illogical moment of humanity.

source: - Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.166, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Topics: Humanity, Overcoming, Moments, Illogical

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 truths.

source: - Last Letter to his Parents, www.companeroche.com. 1965.

Topics: Adventure, Political, Risk, Indignation, Platitudes

Chess is an effective means to educate and train the human intellect.

Topics: Mean, Chess, Intellect

I will fight with all the weapons within my reach rather than let myself be nailed to a cross or whatever.

Topics: Fighting, Weapons, Crosses

I now know, by an almost fatalistic conformity with the facts, that my destiny is to travel.

source: - Che Guevara (2013). “The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey”, Ocean Press

Topics: Travel, Destiny, Facts

The problem of peaceful transition to socialism, we do not discuss it as a theoretical question. But in America it is very difficult, and it is nearly impossible. That is why specifically in America we say that the road to the liberation of peoples, which will be the road of socialism will go through bullets in almost all countries.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Country, America, Peaceful

The amount of poverty and suffering required for a Rockefeller to emerge, and the amount of depravity entailed in the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible for the popular forces to expose this clearly.

source: - "From Algiers, for Marcha : The Cuban Revolution Today". "Marcha" Magazine, www.marxists.org. March 12, 1965.

Topics: People, Suffering, Poverty, Left Out

I have never considered myself an economist.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Economist

Real revolutionaries adorn themselves on the inside, not on the surface.

source: - "Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life". Book by John Lee Anderson, 2010.

Topics: Real, Revolutionary, Surface

Revolution cleanses men, improving them as the experimental farmer corrects the defects of his plants.

Topics: Men, Revolution, Plant

The final hour of colonialism has struck, and millions of inhabitants of Africa, Asia and Latin America rise to meet a new life and demand their unrestricted right to self-determination.

source: - Ernesto Guevara, David Deutschmann (2003). “Che Guevara Reader: Writings on Politics & Revolution”, p.325, Ocean Press

Topics: Determination, Latin, Self

Blind hate against the enemy creates a forceful impulse that cracks the boundaries of natural human limitations, transforming the soldier in an effective, selective and cold killing machine. A people without hate cannot triumph against the adversary.

Topics: Hate, People, Soldier

We travel just to travel.

source: - "The Motorcycle Diaries", www.imdb.com. 2004.

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.

source: - Letter to his aunt Beatriz in 1953. "Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life" by Jon Lee Anderson, 1997.

Topics: Octopus, Capitalist, Comrade

The victory of Socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims!

Topics: Victory, Socialism, Victim

...because it is the very nature of Imperialism to turn humans into beasts.

Topics: Nature, Beast, Imperialism

Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates. Instead they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service. The very spirit of rebellion is reprehensible.

Topics: Military, Ungrateful, Spirit, Mandates

The revolution is made through human beings, but individuals must forge their revolutionary spirit day by day

source: - Ernesto Guevara, David Deutschmann (2003). “Che Guevara Reader: Writings on Politics & Revolution”, p.227, Ocean Press

Topics: Revolution, Spirit, Individual

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.

source: - Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.54, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Topics: War, Struggle, Goal, Stratagem, Recourse

Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy.

source: - Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.174, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Topics: Struggle, Men, People, Vanquish

Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead.

source: - "The Death of Che Guevara: Declassified". National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 5, nsarchive2.gwu.edu. October 8, 1967.

Topics: Alive

The state sometimes makes mistakes. When one of these mistakes occurs, one notes a decline in collective enthusiasm due to the effect of a quantitative diminution in each of the elements that make up the mass. Work is paralyzed until it is reduced to an insignificant level. It is time to make a correction.

source: - "Socialism and Man in Cuba". www.marxists.org. March 12, 1965.

Topics: Mistake, Elements, Enthusiasm

The university should color itself black and color itself mulatto — not just as regards students but also professors. Today the people stand at the door of the university, and it is the university that must be flexible. It must color itself black, mulatto, worker, peasant, or else be left without doors. And then the people will tear it apart and paint it with the colors they see fit.

source: - "'The University Should Color Itself Black, Mulatto, Worker and Peasant'". Speech to the University of Las Villas, www.themilitant.com. December 28, 1959.

Topics: Doors, Color, People, Mulattoes

Guerrilla warfare is used by the side which is supported by a majority but which possesses a much smaller number of arms for use in defense against oppression.

source: - Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.52, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Topics: Numbers, Majority, Warfare, Guerrilla Warfare

We said that each time a country is liberated it is a defeat for the world imperialist system. But we must agree that the break is not achieved by the mere act of proclaiming independence or winning an armed victory in a revolution. It is achieved when imperialist economic domination over a people is brought to an end.

source: - Speech at the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria, www.marxists.org. February 24, 1965.

Topics: Country, Real, Winning, Breaking Away

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.

Topics: Reading, Daddy, Communism, Another Time

As long as imperialism exists it will, by definition, exert its domination over other countries. Today that domination is called neocolonialism.

source: - Ernesto Guevara, David Deutschmann (2003). “Che Guevara Reader: Writings on Politics & Revolution”, p.345, Ocean Press

Topics: Country, Long, Definitions

One does not necessarily have to wait for a revolutionary situation: it can be created.

Topics: Waiting, Doe, Revolution

The myth of the self-made man, has to be profoundly hypocritical: it is the self-serving demonstration that a lie is the truth

source: - Ernesto Guevara, Che Guevara (1991). “A New Society: Reflections for Today's World”, Ocean Press (AU)

Topics: Lying, Men, Self, Hypocritical, Self Made Man

We are not the ones who create revolutions. It is the imperialist system and its allies, internal allies, the ones who create revolution.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Allies, Revolution, Internals

The fundamental principle is that no battle, combat, or skirmish is to be fought unless it will be won.

source: - Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.54, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Topics: Victory, Battle, Principles

We should not go to the [poor countries] and say: 'We come to ... teach you our science, to show you your errors.' ... We should go instead with an inquiring mind and a humble spirit to learn [from] these people.

Topics: Country, Humble, Errors, Inquiring Minds, Poor Countries

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

Topics: Way, Facts, Christ

Socialism is young and has made errors. Many times revolutionaries lack the knowledge and intellectual courage needed to meet the task of developing the new man with methods different from the conventional ones - and the conventional methods suffer from the influences of the society, which created them.

source: - "Man and Socialism in Cuba". A letter by Che Guevara to Carlos Quijano, 1965.

Topics: Men, Errors, Intellectual

Perhaps one day tired of circling the world I'll return to Argentina and settle in the Andean lakes if not indefinitely then at least for a pause while I shift from one understanding of the world to another.

source: - Che Guevara (2013). “The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey”, Ocean Press

Topics: Tired, Lakes, Understanding

If we had to kneel in order to live in peace, [ U.S. government] will have to kill us before.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Government, Order, Ifs

Wrapped in a police blanket, I watched the rain and smoked one black cigarette after another.

source: - Che Guevara (2013). “The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey”, Ocean Press

Topics: Rain, Police, Black

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.

source: - Radio Rivadavia of Argentina Interview, November 03, 1959.

Topics: Latin, Believe, America

I knew that when the great guiding spirit cleaves humanity into two antagonistic halves, I will be with the people.

source: - Che Guevara, Ernesto Guevara (2009). “Che: The Diaries of Ernesto Che Guevara”, p.17, Ocean Press

Topics: Two, People, Humanity, Barricades

If you ask me the image of Latin America, there are sorne countries which oppress their peoples much more, and among the less - least oppressive, among those with which we could have perfectly normal relations without any difficulties - we could have Uruguay, Chile, maybe Costa Rica. But the U.S.. do not permit us.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Country, Latin, Perfectly Normal, Costa Rica, Chile

The word that most perfectly describes the city of Cuzco is evocative. Intangible dust of another era settles on its streets, rising like the disturbed sediment of a muddy lake when you touch its bottom.

source: - Che Guevara (2013). “The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey”, Ocean Press

Topics: Lakes, Dust, Cities

It is not just a simple game, it is a weapon of the revolution.

source: - "Footballing authors: who will defend Frank Lampard?" by David Barnett, www.theguardian.com. February 15, 2013.

Topics: Simple, Games, Weapons

We have a lot of friends, but not among the governments - the friends are in the peoples. And in the last instance the peoples will be the rulers of those states.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Government, Lots Of Friends, Lasts

Revolutions are not exportable: revolutions are created by oppressive conditions which Latin American countries exercise against their peoples.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Country, Latin, Exercise, Latin American

In industry, we are now concentrating our best effort in trying to make plants work at a maximum capacity, trying to replace the equipment which is in bad conditions due to lack of spare parts from the U.S.., that we cannot get from the U.S.; to extend our industry later on the basis of our primary resources. And to lessen our dependence on external markets and dedicate our efforts in 1965 to the aspect of security and hygiene of work, to make our plants better for the worker: that the worker may feel really a man there.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Men, Hygiene, Best Effort, Spare Parts

It is not a matter of wishing success to the victim of aggression, but of sharing his fate; one must accompany him to his death or to victory

source: - Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.166, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Topics: Fate, Victory, Wish, Accompany

I finally felt myself lifted definitively away on the winds of adventure toward worlds I envisaged would be stranger than they were, into situations I imagined would be much more normal than they turned out to be.

source: - Che Guevara (2013). “The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey”, Ocean Press

Topics: Adventure, Wind, Would Be

We have to dedicate our efforts to better the life, the time passed by the worker in the industrial plant. That will be one of our main efforts during the next year.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Years, Effort, Next Year

If they attack, we shall fight to the end. If the rockets had remained, we would have used them all and directed them against the very heart of the United States, including New York, in our defense against aggression. But we haven't got them, so we shall fight with what we've got.

source: - London Daily Worker Interview in November 1962. "Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara" by Jorge G. Castaneda, p. 231, 1998.

Topics: New York, Heart, Fighting

I wanted to take part in the liberation of even a small piece of enslaved Latin America.

Topics: Latin, America, Pieces, Small Pieces

The monopoly capitalists - even while employing purely empirical methods - weave around art a complicated web which converts it into a willing tool. The superstructure of society ordains the type of art in which the artist has to be educated. Rebels are subdued by its machinery and only rare talents may create their own work. The rest become shameless hacks or are crushed.

Topics: Art, Rebel, Tools

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.

source: - "The Many Faces of Socialism Comparative Sociology and Politics". Book by Paul Hollander, p. 224, 1983.

Topics: Motivation, Fighting, People, Marxism

The spectacular landscape circling the fortress supplies an essential backdrop, inspiring dreamers to wander its ruins for the sake of it; North American tourists, bound down by their practical world view, are able to place those members of the disintegrating tribes they may have seen in their travels among these once-living walls, unaware of the moral distance separating them, since only the semi-indigenous spirit of the South American can grasp the subtle differences.

Topics: Wall, Distance, Differences, Backdrop

We do not have elections. But the great majority of the Cuban people supports its government.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Government, People, Support

The inflow of capital from the developed countries is the prerequisite for the establishment of economic dependence. This inflow takes various forms: loans granted on onerous terms; investments that place a given country in the power of the investors; almost total technological subordination of the dependent country to the developed country; control of a country's foreign trade by the big international monopolies; and in extreme cases, the use of force as an economic weapon in support of the other forms of exploitation.

source: - "On Development". Speech delivered at the plenary session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, www.marxists.org. March 25, 1964.

Topics: Country, Support, Use, Subordination, Foreign Trade

Given the prevailing lack of discipline, it would have been impossible to use Congolese machine-gunners to defend the base from air attack: they did not know how to handle their weapons and did not want to learn.

Topics: Air, Discipline, Machines, Gunners

It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution exist; the insurrection can create them.

source: - Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.50, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Topics: Waiting, Revolution, Insurrection

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

source: - Speech to the Second Economic Seminar of Afro-Asian Solidarity in Algiers, Algeria, www.marxists.org. February 24, 1965.

Topics: Country, Freedom, Struggle

I am being bombed by questions of all kinds. I will try to be very concise and try to explain to the American people. We had a great number of mistakes in the economic fleld, naturally. I am not the critic. It is Fidel Castro, the one who has criticized repeatedly the mistakes we have made, and he explained why we have made them. We did not have a previous preparation. We made mistakes in agriculture. We made mistakes in industry. All these mistakes are being settled now.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Mistake, Numbers, Agriculture

Always we argue that unity is necessity because disunity goes in favor of the U.S. , which are our enemy, and everything that goes in favor of the enemy must be eliminated. That is why we are in favor of unity.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Unity, Enemy, Favors, Disunity

We feel that there is a necessity to strengthen unity and that it will be strengthened and the bloc, the monolithic bloc of socialist countries will be formed again.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Country, Socialist Countries, Unity

The guerrilla band is not to be considered inferior to the army against which it fights simply because it is inferior in fire power.

source: - Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.52, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Topics: Fighting, Army, Fire

We have denounced in all assemblies, in all places where we have had the opportunity to speak, the illegality of flights and the fact that there is a base against the will of the Cuban people.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Opportunity, People, Facts

And yet every so often, the heart of America, shuddering with indignation, sends a nervous spasm through the gentle back of the Andes, and tumultuous shock waves assault the surface of the land. Three times the cuppola of proud Santo Domingo has collapsed from on high to the rhythm of broken bones and its worn walls have opened and fallen too. But the foundations they rest on are unmoved, the great blocks of the Temple of the Sun exhibit their gray stone indifferently; however colossal the disaster befalling its oppressor, not one of its huge rocks shifts from its place.

Topics: Wall, Block, Heart, Broken Bone, Shuddering

I understand that the American people has a right and especially the press, which is not very friendly to us, to make all suppositions and ideas about this fact [suicide by Augusto Martinez] - this disgraced fact.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Suicide, Ideas, People

Each spilt drop of blood, in any country under whose flag one has not been born, is an experience passed on to those who survive, to be added later to the liberation struggle of his own country. And each nation liberated is a phase won in the battle for the liberation of one's own country.

source: - Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.174, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Topics: Country, Struggle, Blood

The socialist countries have the moral duty of liquidating their tacit complicity with the exploiting countries of the West.

Topics: Country, Socialist Countries, West, Moral Duty, Complicity

I think with regards to solutions, there are solutions, and I think there is only one. we have said repeatedly to the government of the United States that we do not want anything but to forget us, that they do not consider us even for good or evil.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Thinking, Government, Evil

We sold sugar with the specific conditions established by American buyers, which in turn dominated the internal market and production in Cuba. Now if we would sell sugar to the U.S., it would be the Cuban Government the one who would sell it, and it would be a complete profit for our people.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Government, People, Cuba

Our attitude is very clear. In effect there is the conflict, ideological conflict which we all know. We have stated our position in the sense of unity among socialist states - unity as a first measure.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Attitude, Unity, Firsts

While envisaging the destruction of imperialism, it is necessary to identify its head, which is no other than the United States of America.

source: - Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.173, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Topics: America, United States, Imperialism

Imperialism has been defeated in many partial battles. But it remains a considerable force in the world, and we cannot expect its final defeat save through effort and sacrifice on the part of all of us.

source: - Ernesto Che Guevara, Ernesto Guevara (2000). “Che Guevara Speaks”, Pathfinder Press

Topics: Sacrifice, Effort, Battle

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

source: - Ernesto Guevara, David Deutschmann (2003). “Che Guevara Reader: Writings on Politics & Revolution”, p.384, Ocean Press

Topics: Ribs, Arms, Shields

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.

source: - Che Guevara (2002). “Guerrilla Warfare”, p.52, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Topics: Brother, Fighting, Order, Ignominy, Guerrilla Warfare

The fact of the attempted suicide by Augusto Martinez was explained in a concise and exact form by our government in a communique. There is absolutely nothing else to add.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Suicide, Government, Add, Concise

I am not the representative of guerrilla in this hemisphere. I would say that the representative would be Fidel Castro which was the leader of our revolution and who had the most outstanding role in the direction of the revolutionary struggle and directs the strategy of the Cuban government.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Struggle, Government, Leader

This is the Cuzco asking you to pull on your armor and, mounted on the ample back of a powerful horse, cleave a path through the defenseless flesh of a naked Indian flock whose human wall collapses and disappears beneath the four hooves of the galloping beast.

source: - Ernesto Che Guevara (2013). “The Awakening of Latin America: A Classic Anthology of Che Guevara's Writing on Latin America”, p.58, Ocean Press

Topics: Horse, Wall, Powerful, Galloping

We will not accept any conditions from the U.S.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Accepting, Conditions

There is one government with which we keep diplomatic relations, the government of Mexico, with which we have good relations. Our systems are different. We respect their system.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Government, Different, Mexico, Diplomatic Relations

We put no condition of any kind to the U.S., we don't want it to change its system, we don't want racial discrimination to cease in the U.S., we put no conditions to the establishment of relations.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Want, Discrimination, Kind, Racial Discrimination

With a military American base in our territory, where there could be any sort of weapons, where we have to endure every kind of provocations, we have to support and endure the flights over our territory.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Military, Support, Territory

I do not imply that in the U.S plants, industrial plants, are places of exploitation where man is oppressed. 1 know that there are a great number of advantages here for too American worker.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Men, Numbers, Plant, American Workers

We have taken plants from the capitalist system where the most important thing was to produce, especially in Cuba.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Taken, Important, Cuba

Let's liquidate all the atomic bases in Cuba and in the U.S. and we are in complete agreement with that.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Agreement, Cuba, Bases

We know the power of the U.S.. We do not fool ourselves about this power. We say that the U.S. government wants us to pay a very high price for this unstable peace we enjoy today. And the price we are in a position to pay is only - comes only to the frontiers of dignity, not beyond.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Government, Want, Pay, Enjoy Today, High Prices

Arms cannot be regarded as merchandise in our world. They should be delivered to the peoples asking for them for use against the common enemy without any charge at all, and in quantities determined by the need and their availability.

Topics: Our World, Availability, Enemy, Merchandise, Common Enemy

Its tall chimneys throw up black smoke, impregnating everything with soot, and the miners' faces as they traveled the streets were also imbued with that ancient melancholy of smoke, unifying everything with its grayish monotones, a perfect coupling with the gray mountain days.

source: - Che Guevara (2013). “The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey”, Ocean Press

Topics: Perfect, Black, Mountain, Coupling

I think harmonious relations with the U.S. would be very good for us from the economical point of view, more than in any other field, because all our industry has been established by the U.S. and primary products and repair parts that we have to make with much difficulty or to bring from other areas could come directly. And besides, sugar, which traditionally we had the American market is also near.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Thinking, Views, Would Be

What we consider is that the Venezuelan government is not a leftist government, has nothing of a leftist government. It is an oppressor, an oppressive government, it is a murderer - he murders them - the peasant fights in the region of Falcon, for example, where there are military advisers of the U.S.

source: - Source: guevaristas.org

Topics: Military, Fighting, Government, Oppressive Governments, Venezuelans