50 Best Ernesto Che Guevara Quotes
Ernesto “Che” Guevara (June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967) de la Serna was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary who was a prominent figure during the Cuban Revolution. Guevara studied medicine before traveling around South America, observing the conditions that spurred his Marxist beliefs. He aided Fidel Castro in overturning the Batista government during the late 1950s, and then held key political offices during Castro’s regime. Guevara later engaged in guerrilla action elsewhere, including in Bolivia, where he was captured and executed in 1967 Early Life.
- “The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.”
- “The true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.”
- “If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.”
- “Whenever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear…”
- “Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world.”
- “Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel.”
- “We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.”
- “The only passion that guides me is for the truth… I look at everything from this point of view.”
- “Remember that the revolution is what is important, and each one of us, alone, is worth nothing.”
- “I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.”
- “Silence is argument carried out by other means.”
- “Passion is needed for any great work, and for the revolution, passion and audacity are required in big doses.”
- “How easy it is to govern when one follows a system of consulting the will of the people…”
- “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.”
- “I have a wish. It is a fear as well—that in my end will be my beginning.”
- “The first duty of a revolutionary is to be educated.”
- “Every day people straighten up the hair, why not the heart?”
- “Be realistic, demand the impossible!”
- “Let the world change you and you can change the world.”
- “I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves.”
- “To accomplish much you must first lose everything.”
- “Live your life not celebrating victories, but overcoming defeats.
- “It’s a sad thing not to have friends, but it is even sadder not to have enemies.”
- “Every person has the truth in his heart… once his heart is pieced with a crystal needle, the truth will gush forth like a geyser.”
- “We have no right to believe that freedom can be won without struggle.”
- “It’s not my fault if reality is Marxist.”
- “The best form of saying is being.”
- “The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth.”
- “Words that do not match deeds are unimportant.”
- “If you can find ways without any obstacles, it probably leads nowhere.”
- “One must endure without losing tenderness.”
- “I don’t care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.”
- “I will always dream and will never stop until I am dead.”
- “The walls of the educational system must come down. Education should not be a privilege…”
- “There is no other definition of socialism valid for us than that of the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.”
- “There are no boundaries in this struggle to the death…”
- “Many will call me an adventurer – and that I am, only one of a different sort…”
- “The future belongs to those who fight for it today.”
- “The merit of Marx is that he suddenly produces a qualitative change in the history of social thought.”
- “The ultimate and most important revolutionary aspiration: to see human beings liberated from their alienation.”
- “Democracy cannot consist solely of elections that are nearly always fictitious…”
- “Don’t be afraid to cry. It will free your mind of sorrowful thoughts.”
- “A country that does not know how to read and write is easy to deceive.”
- “Democracy is not compatible with financial oligarchy.”
- “The revolution is made through human beings, but individuals must forge their revolutionary spirit day by day.”
- “The true revolutionary sees his task within the revolution not as a sacrifice but as a joyful and invigorating experience.”
- “Let the flag under which we fight be the sacred cause of the creation of man.”
- “I have no house, wife, children, parents, or brothers; my friends are friends only when I am successful.”
- “Passion is needed for any great work, and for the revolution…”
- “Better to die standing than to live on your knees.”
