Che Guevara Quotes

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

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

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.

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.

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.

It's not my fault if reality is Marxist

Democracy is not compatible with financial oligarchy.

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.

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 bestial howl!

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.

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.

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

I could become very rich in Guatemala but by the low method of ratifying my title, opening a clinic, and specialising in allergies. To do that would be the most horrible betrayal of the two 'I's' struggling inside me: the socialist and the traveller.

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

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

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.

The blacks, those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing, have seen their territory invaded by a new kind of slave: the Portuguese.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Words that do not match deeds are not important.

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

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

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

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

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

Remember that the revolution is what is important, and each one of us, alone, is worth nothing.

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

There are no borders in this fight to the death; we cannot be indifferent to what is happening in any part of the world.

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

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!

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.

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

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.

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

Passion is needed for any great work, and for the revolution, passion and audacity are required in big doses.

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.

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

One must endure without losing tenderness.

Live your life not celebrating victories, but overcoming defeats.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

I had a project for my life which involved 10 years of wandering, then some years of medical studies and, if any time was left, the great adventure of physics.

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,

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

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

The only passion that guides me is for the truth ... I look at everything from this point of view.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

In a revolution, one triumphs or dies.

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

I would probably have more in common with a whale than with a bourgeois married couple employed at worthy institutions that I would wipe from the face of the earth if it was given to me to do so.

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

To accomplish much you must first lose everything.

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.

We travel just to travel.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.