Benito Mussolini Quotes

Silence is the only answer you should give to the fools. Where ignorance speaks, intelligence should not give advices.

Democratic regimes may be defined as those in which, every now and then, the people are given the illusion of being sovereign, while the true sovereignty in actual fact resides in other forces which are sometimes irresponsible and secret.

We become strong, I feel, when we have no friends upon whom to lean, or to look to for moral guidance.

If only we can give them faith that mountains can be moved, they will accept the illusion that mountains are moveable, and thus an illusion may become reality.

Let us have a dagger between our teeth,a bomb in our hand,and an infinite scorn in our hearts.

In Fascism the State is not a night-watchman, only occupied with the personal safety of the citizens.

There is a violence that liberates, and a violence that enslaves; there is a violence that is moral and a violence that is immoral.

The state reserves the right to be the sole interpreter of the needs of society.

One moment on the battlefield is worth a thousand years of peace.

We deny your internationalism, because it is a luxury which only the upper classes can afford.

Journalism is not a profession, but a mission.

We affirm that the true story of capitalism is now beginning, because capitalism is not a system of oppression only, but is also a selection of values, a coordination of hierarchies, a more amply developed sense of individual responsibility.

What the proletariat needs is a bath of blood.

Italian journalism is free because it serves one cause and one purpose ... mine!

Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power

If the 19th [century] was the century of the individual (liberalism means individualism), you may consider that this is the "collective" century, and therefore the century of the state.

The Fascist State lays claim to rule in the economic field no less than in others; it makes its action felt throughout the length and breadth of the country by means of its corporate, social, and educational institutions, and all the political, economic, and spiritual forces of the nation, organised in their respective associations, circulate within the State.

Every anarchist is a baffled dictator.

It's good to trust others but, not to do so is much better.

People are tired of liberty. They have had a surfeit of it. Liberty is no longer a chaste and austere virgin ... Today's youth are moved by other slogans ... Order, Hierarchy, Discipline.

At every hour of every day, I can tell you on which page of which book each school child in Italy is studying.

For us the national flag is a rag to be planted on a dunghill. There are only two fatherlands in the world: that of the exploited and that of the exploiters.

Yet if anyone cares to read over the now crumbling minutes giving an account of the meetings at which the Italian Fasci di Combattimento were founded, he will find not a doctrine but a series of pointers ... It may be objected that this program implies a return to the guilds (corporazioni). No matter! ... I therefore hope this assembly will accept the economic claims advanced by national syndicalism.

Given that the nineteenth century was the century of Socialism, of Liberalism, and of Democracy, it does not necessarily follow that the twentieth century must also be a century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy: political doctrines pass, but humanity remains, and it may rather be expected that this will be a century of authority ... a century of Fascism. For if the nineteenth century was a century of individualism it may be expected that this will be the century of collectivism and hence the century of the State.

War is to man what maternity is to a woman. From a philosophical and doctrinal viewpoint, I do not believe in perpetual peace.

We do not argue with those who disagree with us, we destroy them.

War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and imposes the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to make it.

There is the great, silent, continuous struggle: the struggle between the State and the Individual; between the State which demands and the individual who attempts to evade such demands. Because the individual, left to himself, unless he be a saint or hero, always refuses to pay taxes, obey laws, or go to war.

The Liberal State is a mask behind which there is no face; it is a scaffolding behind which there is no building.

We become strongest, I feel, when we have no friends upon whom to lean, or to look for moral gudance

I am desperately Italian. I believe in the function of Latinity.

If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, we Fascists conclude that we have the right to create our own ideology and to enforce it with all the energy of which we are capable.

Fascism is not an article for export.

The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide; he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, life which should be high and full, lived for oneself, but not above all for others those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after.

We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty

The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State
a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values
interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people.

Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy.

Youth is a malady of which one becomes cured a little every day.

Religion is man-made to assist in controlling the weak minded individuals because during times of atrocity and despair they feel strength in numbers.

This is the epitaph I want on my tomb: Here lies one of the most intelligent animals who ever appeared on the face of the earth.

The Mediterranean will be turned into an Italian lake.

Three cheers for war, noble and beautiful above all.

Yes, a dictator can be loved. Provided that the masses fear him at the same time. The crowd love strong men. The crowd is like a woman.

I should be pleased, I suppose, that Hitler has carried out a revolution on our lines. But they are Germans. So they will end by ruining our idea.

On the morrow of each conflict I gave the categorical order to confiscate the largest possible number of weapons of every sort and kind.

War is the normal state of the people.

It is humiliating to remain with our hands folded while others write history. It matters little who wins. To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the pants. That is what I shall do.

It is the State which educates its citizens in civic virtue, gives them a consciousness of their mission and welds them into unity.

The measures adopted to restore public order are: First of all, the elimination of the so-called subversive elements ... They were elements of disorder and subversion. On the morrow of each conflict I gave the categorical order to confiscate the largest possible number of weapons of every sort and kind. This confiscation, which continues with the utmost energy, has given satisfactory results.

The Government has been compelled to levy taxes which unavoidably hit large sections of the population. The Italian people are disciplined, silent and calm, they work and know that there is a Government which governs, and know, above all, that if this Government hits cruelly certain sections of the Italian people, it does not so out of caprice, but from the supreme necessity of national order.

It is not impossible to rule Italians, but it would be useless.

Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism - born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it.

The fate of nations is intimately bound up with their powers of reproduction. All nations and all empires first felt decadence gnawing at them when their birth rate fell off.

I have been a racist since 1921. I don't know how they can think I'm imitating Hitler,

The history of saints is mainly the history of insane people. -Benito Mussolini (Chuck Palahniuk - Pygmy)

A nation of spaghetti eaters cannot restore Roman civilization!

Liberty is no longer the virgin, chaste and severe, to be fought for ... we have buried the putrid corpse of liberty ... the Italian people are a race of sheep.

The fascist state is the corporate state.

The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative.

All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

Three cheers for the war. Three cheers for Italy's war and three cheers for war in general. Peace is hence absurd or rather a pause in war.

Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposed to the doctrines of liberalism, both in the political and economic sphere.

State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention may take the form of control, assistance or direct management.

For my part I prefer fifty thousand rifles to fifty thousand votes

You must always be doing things and obviously succeeding. The hard part is to keep people always at the window because of the spectacle you put on for them. And you must do this for years.

I do not intend to defend capitalism or capitalists. They, like everything human, have their defects. I only say their possibilities of usefulness are not ended.
Capitalism has borne the monstrous burden of the war and today still has the strength to shoulder the burdens of peace ...
It is not simply and solely an accumulation of wealth, it is an elaboration, a selection, a co-ordination of values which is the work of centuries ...
Many think, and I myself am one of them, that capitalism is scarcely at the beginning of its story.

Fortunately the Italian people has not yet accustomed itself to eat many times a day, and possessing a modest level of living, it feels deficiency and suffering less.

The mass, whether it be a crowd or an army, is vile.

Fascism entirely agrees with Mr. Maynard Keynes, despite the latter's prominent position as a Liberal. In fact, Mr. Keynes' excellent little book, The End of Laissez-Faire (l926) might, so far as it goes, serve as a useful introduction to fascist economics. There is scarcely anything to object to in it and there is much to applaud.

Our program is simple: we wish to govern Italy. They ask us for programs but there are already too many. It is not programs that are wanting for the salvation of Italy but men and will power.

I am not a collector of deserts!

The function of a citizen and a soldier are inseparable.

What is liberty? There is no such thing as absolute liberty!

Thirty centuries of history allow us to look with supreme pity on certain doctrines which are preached beyond the Alps by the descendants of those who were illiterate when Rome had Caesar, Virgil, and Augustus.

What is freedom? There is no such thing as absolute freedom!

Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail.

It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.

Democracy is talking itself to death. The people do not know what they want; they do not know what is the best for them. There is too much foolishness, too much lost motion. I have stopped the talk and the nonsense. I am a man of action. Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy. You in America will see that some day.

Statesman only talk of fate when they have blundered

The Italian proletariat needs a blood bath for it force to be renewed.

Fascism recognises the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade-unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which diverent interests are coordinated and harmonised in the unity of the State.

Italy wants peace and quiet, work and calm. I will give these things with love if possible and with force if necessary.

The truth is that men are tired of liberty.

Liberty is a duty, not a right.

If I advance; follow me. If I retreat; kill me. If I die; avenge me! It is better to live one day as a lion than one-hundred years as a sheep!

Fascism accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with the state's.

Fortunately the Italian people is not habituated to eating several times a day.

As regards the Liberal doctrines, the attitude of Fascism is one of absolute opposition both in the political and in the economical field.