Che Guevara, the leftist fighter, grew up in Argentina. He helped bring about a revolution in Cuba, exciting people with his vision of a more just and balanced world. Guevara wrote dozens of works in Spanish ranging from personal diaries to political manifestos. He also wrote The Motorcycle Diaries, a memoir of his travels through South America. Guevara’s works have inspired generations of socialist and leftist thought. He lived according to the principles of social justice and class equality. These are the most meaningful quotes from his work, ranging from political and social to personal topics. Che Guevara’s sayings will make you think about justice and getting involved in public debate.
Words without deeds are worthless.
The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.
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.
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 true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.
I have lived magnificent days.
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.
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.
Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.
Democracy is not compatible with financial oligarchy.
Wealth is far from being within the reach of the masses simply through the process of appropriation.
It’s a sad thing not to have friends, but it is even sadder not to have enemies.
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.
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.
We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.
Silence is argument carried out by other means.
Democracy cannot consist solely of elections that are nearly always fictitious and managed by rich landowners and professional politicians.
The basic clay of our work is the youth; we place our hope in it and prepare it to take the banner from our hands.
We must struggle every day so that this love for humanity becomes a reality.
Until the everlasting victory.
Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel.
I would rather die standing up to live life on my knees.
Passion is needed for any great work, and for the revolution, passion and audacity are required in big doses.
We have no right to believe that freedom can be won without struggle.
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.
In a revolution, one triumphs or dies.
I will fight with all the weapons within my reach rather than let myself be nailed to a cross or whatever.
The feeling of revolt will grow stronger every day among the peoples subjected to various degrees of exploitation, and they will take up arms to gain by force the rights which reason alone has not won them.
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.
Let the world change you and you can change the world.
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.
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?
I don’t care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.
The guerrilla fighter needs full help from the people of the area. This is an indispensable condition.
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.
When forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law, peace is considered already broken.
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.
Knowledge makes us accountable.
Every day People straighten up the hair, why not the heart?
Words that do not match deeds are unimportant.
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.
Live your life not celebrating victories, but overcoming defeats.
We should not allow the word democracy to be utilized apologetically to represent the dictatorship of the exploiting classes.
I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves.
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.
I don’t know if the Cuban revolution will survive or not. It’s difficult to say. But [if it doesn’t] . . . don’t come looking for me among the refugees in the embassies. I’ve had that experience, and I’m not ever going to repeat it. I will go out with a machine gun in my hand, to the barricades. . . I’ll keep fighting to the end.
I have a wish. It as a fear as well – that in my end will be my beginning.
Let’s be realistic. Let’s do the impossible!
In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm.
I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.
Our youth must always be free, discussing and exchanging ideas concerned with what is happening throughout the entire world.
We are overcome by anguish at this illogical moment of humanity.
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.
Hatred is an element of struggle; relentless hatred of the enemy that impels us over and beyond the natural limitations of man and transforms us into effective, violent, selective, and cold killing machines. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy.
The only passion that guides me is for the truth… I look at everything from this point of view.
Youth should learn to think and act as a mass. It is criminal to think as individuals!
There are no frontiers in this struggle to the death.. A victory for any member against imperialism is our victory, just as any country’s defeat is a defeat for all.
Study hard so that you can master technology, which allows us to master nature.
Don’t be afraid, commander, I’ll die by your side!’ The trouble was, I didn’t want to die at all, I’d rather send him to the devil instead. I think that’s what I did in fact
As long as imperialism exists it will, by definition, exert its domination over other countries. Today that domination is called neocolonialism.
Many will call me an adventurer, and that I am…only one of a different sort: one who risks his skin to prove his truths.
If any person has a good word for the previous government that is good enough for me to have him shot.
Words that do not match deeds are not important.
If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.
Man really attains the state of complete humanity when he produces, without being forced by physical need to sell himself as a commodity.
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.
Our every action is a battle cry against imperialism, and a battle hymn for the people’s unity against the great enemy of mankind
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!