Che Guevara Quotes

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

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. ~ Che Guevara

I think a lot of people saw 'Fight Club' and thought, 'Right, here's our next Che Guevara, here's our next Fidel Castro, here's someone who's going to wave the flag.' And I was like, 'No, it's just a book. And if I beat that drum, if I play that song one more time, I won't have a career.' ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Through Jimi Hendrix's music you can almost see the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and of Martin Luther King Junior, the beginnings of the Berlin Wall, Yuri Gagarin in space, Fidel Castro and Cuba, the debut of Spiderman, Martin Luther King Junior's 'I Have a Dream' speech, Ford Mustang cars, anti-Vietnam protests, Mary Quant designing the mini-skirt, Indira Gandhi becoming the Prime Minister of India, four black students sitting down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro North Carolina, President Johnson pushing the Civil Rights Act, flower children growing their hair long and practicing free love, USA-funded IRA blowing up innocent civilians on the streets and in the pubs of Great Britain, Napalm bombs being dropped on the lush and carpeted fields of Vietnam, a youth-driven cultural revolution in Swinging London, police using tear gas and billy-clubs to break up protests in Chicago, Mods and Rockers battling on Brighton Beach, Native Americans given the right to vote in their own country, the United Kingdom abolishing the death penalty, and the charismatic Argentinean Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. It's all in Jimi's absurd and delirious guitar riffs. ~ Karl Wiggins

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. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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. We must create the pedagogy of the paredón [execution wall]. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

Merger Evers/John F. Kennedy/Malcolm X/Martin Luther King/Robert Kennedy/Che Guevara/Patrice Lamumba/George Jackson/Cynthia Wesley/Addie Mae Collins/Denise McNair/Carole Robertson/Viola Liuzzo
It was a decade marked by death. Violent and inevitable. Funerals became engraved on the brain, intensifying the ephemeral nature of life. For many in the South it was a decade reminiscent of earlier times, when oak trees sighed over their burdens in the wind; Spanish moss draggled blood to the ground; amen corners creaked with grief; and the thrill of being able, once again, to endure unendurable loss produced so profound an ecstasy in mourners that they strutted, without noticing their feet, along the thin backs of benches: their piercing shouts of anguish and joy never interrupted by an inglorious fall. They shared rituals for the dead to be remembered. ~ Alice Walker

Hay que ser duro pero jamas perder la ternura.
[It is necessary to be hard but never to lose the tenderness] ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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. ~ Che Guevara

Jay-Z's a guy that wears the Che Guevara t-shirt and he doesn't realize Che Guevara was a racist. Che Guevara was a murderer and a killer. So look, he's an entertainer, obviously. He's not in the middle of any public discourse here. But I think it's important to point out when people take stances like this that are absurd. ~ Marco Rubio

There is a bit of vanity hiding somewhere within every one of us," Che wrote afterward. "It made me feel like the proudest man on earth that day." From then on, to all but his closest friends, he was Comandante Che Guevara. ~ Anonymous

To use the image of Che Guevara to sell vodka is a slur on his name and memory. He never drank himself, he was not a drunk, and drink should not be associated with his immortal memory ... As a supporter of the ideals for which Che Guevara died, I am not averse to its reproduction by those who wish to propagate his memory and the cause of social justice throughout the world. ~ Alberto Korda

A petty concern with mere evidence is an antiquated and bourgeois feature of the captalist legal system. We are revolutionaries. We convict from a revolutionary passion. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

Let the world change you and you can change the world ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

Individuals start to see themselves reflected in their work and to understand their full status as human beings through the object created, through the work accomplished. Work no longer entails surrendering a part of one's being in the form of labor power sold, which no longer belongs to the individual, but becomes an expression of oneself, a contribution to the common life in which one is reflected, the fulfillment of one's social duty. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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. ~ Che Guevara

Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates ... Instead, they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service, should learn to think and act as a mass. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

Every factory must be a school to educate, like Che Guevara said, to produce not only briquettes, steel, and aluminum, but also, above all, the new man and woman, the new society, the socialist society. ~ Hugo Chavez

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

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

Terrorism should be considered a valuable tactic when it is used to put to death some noted leader of the oppressing forces well known for his cruelty, his efficiency in repression, or other quality that makes his elimination useful. But the killing of persons of small importance is never advisable, since it brings on an increase of reprisals, including deaths. ~ 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. ~ Che Guevara

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

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

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

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

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

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

His wife spotted the danger in our resolutely bohemian ways.
"You have only one year left before you qualify as a doctor and yet you're going away? You have no idea when you'll be back? But why?"
We couldn't give precise answers to her desperate questions and this horrified her ... ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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

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. ~ Che Guevara

American capitalism replaced some of the old colonial capitalisms in the countries that began their independent life. But it knows that this is transitory and that there is no real security for its financial speculation in these new territories. The octopus cannot there apply its suckers firmly. The claw of the imperial eagle is trimmed. Colonialism is dead or is dying a natural death in all these places. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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

Democracy is not compatible with financial oligarchy. ~ Che Guevara

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

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

Joshua needed to eat something before embarking upon it, and hence stood in line behind an overtattooed prick who couldn't decide between banana and pumpkin bread, while the barista in a Che Guevara hat (yet presumably fluent in Middle fucking English) looked on indifferently. ~ Aleksandar Hemon

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

Some give the impression they go on living only because it's a habit they cannot shake ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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. ~ Che Guevara

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

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

They sought out rap music to attack, but you don't hear that anymore because it made too much money. They use Che Guevara to sell soft drinks. If something comes out that is radical and it's successful, then it's no longer radical. It's co-opted. ~ John Landis

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

One has to grow hard but without ever losing tenderness. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

Wars stopped slavery in America and liberated Europe and put an end to Japanese imperialism and killed Hitler and Mussolini and Pol Pot and Che Guevara and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. That's why we have them. ~ David NMI Stone

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

It is necessary to distinguish clearly between sabotage, a revolutionary and highly effective method of warfare, and terrorism, a measure that is generally ineffective and indiscriminate in its results, since it often makes victims of innocent people and destroys a large number of lives that would be valuable to the revolution. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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

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

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

One must endure without losing tenderness. ~ Che Guevara

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. ~ Che Guevara

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

The victory of Socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims! ~ Che Guevara

General Mario Vargas Salinas, now retired from Bolivia's Eighth Army Division, was one of the young army officers present at Guevara's burial. It was his duty to accompany an old dump truck carrying the bodies of the six dead rebels, including that of "Che" Guevara, to the airstrip in Vallegrande, Bolivia. Knowing that the facts surrounding the burials were leaking out, he decided that after 28 years the world should know what had happened to "Che" Guevara's body. At the time, Captain Vargas, who had also led the ambush in which Tamara "Tania" Bunke, Guevara's lover, was shot dead, said that Guevara was buried early on the morning of October 11th, 1967, at the end of the town's landing strip. After the gruesome facts became known, the Bolivian government ordered the army to find Guevara's remains for a proper burial.
General Gary Prado Salmón, retired, had been the commander of the unit that had captured Guevara. He confirmed General Vargas' statement and added that the guerrilla fighters had been burned, before dumping their bodies into a mass grave, dug by a bulldozer, at the end of the Vallegrande airstrip. He explained that the body of "Che" Guevara had been buried in a separate gravesite under the runway. The morning after the burials, "Che" Guevara's brother arrived in Vallegrande, hoping to see his brother's remains. Upon asking, he was told by the police that it was too late. Talking to some of the army officers, he was told lies or perhaps just differing account ~ Hank Bracker

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. ~ Che Guevara

The religious imagery and fairytales that formed our shared cultural references have been replaced by the cult of celebrity. Marilyn is the sex goddess, Camilla Parker Bowles is cast as the wicked witch, Che Guevara is the revolutionary. Celebrities have become visual shorthand for narratives that shape our lives. ~ Alison Jackson

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. ~ Che Guevara

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. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

The dramatic news is confirmed: Che has died in combat. His belongings are described in vivid detail and other information is given that only those close to the scene could have known. The ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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

I've made a poster at home. You know the iconic image of Che Guevara, the black and red graphic of his face? I think it's the perfect graphic, the best graphic ever made. I cut a Concorde out and put it over his head so it's Che looking up and the Concorde going by. Both are dead, maybe obsolete. ~ Aleksandra Mir

Russian young people spend countless hours online downloading videos and having a very nice digital entertainment lifestyle, which does not necessarily turn them into the next Che Guevara. ~ Evgeny Morozov

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

We executed many people by firing squad without knowing if they were fully guilty. At times, the Revolution cannot stop to conduct much investigation; it has the obligation to triumph. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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

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

The psychological effects of the sun are strange: it had not yet appeared over the horizon and we already felt comforted, just imagining the heat it would bring. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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. ~ Che Guevara

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, ~ Che Guevara

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

It is there, in the final moments, for people whose farthest horizon has always been tomorrow, that one comprehends the profound tragedy circumscribing the life of the proletariat the world over. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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

You know how much I admire Che Guevara. In fact, I believe that the man was not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age: as a fighter and as a man, as a
theoretician who was able to further the cause of revolution by drawing his theories from his personal experience in battle. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

I spent a great deal of time with Che Guevara while I was in Havana. I believe he was far less a mercenary than he was a freedom fighter. ~ Maureen O'Hara

And if there's any hope for America, it lies in a revolution, and if there's any hope for a revolution in America, it lies in getting Elvis Presley to become Che Guevara. ~ Phil Ochs

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

Tamara Bunke was the only woman to fight alongside "Che" during his Bolivian campaign. She was an East German national, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on November 19, 1937, of Communist activist parents. As a child, her home was frequently used for meetings, hiding weapons and conducting other Communist activities. After World War II, in 1952 she returned to Germany where she attended Humboldt University in Berlin. Tamara met "Che" Guevara when she was an attractive 23-year-old woman in Leipzig, and he was with a Cuban Trade Delegation. The two instantly hit it off as she cozied up to him and, having learned how to fight and use weapons in Pinar del Rio in western Cuba, she joined his expedition to Bolivia.
Becoming a spy for the ELN, she adopted the name "Tania" and posed as a right-wing authority of South-American music and folklore. In disguise, she managed to warm up to and entice Bolivian President René Barrientos. She even went on an intimate vacation to Peru with him. ~ Hank Bracker

I'm not just influenced by the '60s - it's who I am. I grew up with Allen Ginsberg and Che Guevara. I flirted with various forms of communism when it was way out of style. It was this really strange and creative time in music and culture, and it was fabulous. ~ Thom Mayne

Welcome to the First International Red Fighting Brigade of the Moscow Metropolitan in the name of Ernesto Che Guevara! ~ Dmitry Glukhovsky

Adherence to principles, and adherence to the individual, combine to make the Rebel Army an indivisible fist. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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 ~ Che Guevara

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. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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. ~ Che Guevara

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. ~ Che Guevara

So the Trustees of Ohio State were right in 1956 when they canned the English instructor for assigning Catcher in the Rye to his freshman class. They knew there is no qualitative difference between the kid who thinks it's funny to fart in chapel, and Che Guevara. They knew then Holden Caulfield would found SDS. ~ E.L. Doctorow

After graduation, due to special circumstances and perhaps also to my character, I began to travel throughout America, and I became acquainted with all of it. Except for Haiti and Santo Domingo, I have visited, to some extent, all the other Latin American countries. Because of the circumstances in which I traveled, first as a student and later as a doctor, I came into close contact with poverty, hunger and disease; with the inability to treat a child because of lack of money; with the stupefaction provoked by the continual hunger and punishment, to the point that a father can accept the loss of a son as an unimportant accident, as occurs often in the downtrodden classes of our American homeland. And I began to realize at that time that there were things that were almost as important to me as becoming famous for making a significant contribution to medical science: I wanted to help those people. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

For me, the sea has always been a confidant, a friend absorbing all it is told and never revealing those secrets; always giving the best advice - its meaningful noises can be interpreted any way you choose. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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

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. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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

To die with dignity does not require company ~ Jon Lee Anderson

The one consistent policy running through this [Clinton] administration is the love it has lavished on Marxists
food aid for North Korea, diplomatic recognition of the Hanoi regime, chronic kowtowing to Beijing and now doing Castro's dirty work. How can the Clinton gang
which carried the Viet Cong flag during anti-war demonstrations and decorated their dorm rooms with pictures of Che Guevara
not feel contempt for people who insist, with every fiber of their being, that communism is mankind's mortal enemy? ~ Don Feder

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. ~ Che Guevara

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

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

Che is transformed into a hardened symbol of resistance, a symbol of the fight for what is just, of passion, of the necessity of being fully human, multiplied infinitely in the ideals and weapons of those who struggle. This is what the front men and their omnipotent handlers fear. ~ Ernesto Che Guevara

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