Quotessence
Home / Authors / Che Guevara
Che Guevara

Che Guevara Quotes

Revolutionary

Filter quotes by topic

AllRevolutionaryIfsPeopleRevolutionWorldMenCountryGovernmentKnowsFighting

Famous Che Guevara Quotes

“[W]e still have not been able to give work its true content. We have not been able to link the worker with the object of his labor; and at the same time, imbue the worker with a consciousness of the importance of that creative act that he performs every day. The worker and the machine, the worker and the object to which he applies his labor-these are still different and antagonistic things. And that has to be changed, because new generations must be formed whose main interest is work and who know how to find in work a permanent and constantly changing source of fresh excitement. They need to make work something cre­ative, something new.”

WorkSocialismCommunism
Author:Che Guevara
Create image

“The guerilla fighter will be a sort of guiding angel who has fallen into the zone, helping the poor always and bothering the rich as little as possible in the first phases of the war. But this war will continue on its course; contradictions will continuously become sharper; the moment will arrive when many of those who regarded the revolution with a certain sympathy at the outset will place themselves in a position diametrically opposed; and they will take the first step into battle against the popular forces. At that moment the guerilla fighter should act to make himself into the standard bearer of the cause of the people, punishing every betrayal with justice.”

PoliticsJusticeLeaderClassMilitaryRevolutionWarfareTacticsGuerilla
Author:Che Guevara
Create image

“[The young communist] must always pay attention to the mass of human beings he lives among. Every Young Communist must fundamentally be hu­man, so human that he draws closer to humanity's best qualities. Through work, through study, and through ongoing solidarity with the people and all the peoples of the world, he distills the best of what man is. Developing to the utmost the sensitivity to feel an­guish when a human being is murdered in any corner of the world and to feel enthusiasm when a new banner of freedom is raised in any corner of the world. [Applause] The Young Communist cannot be limited by national borders. The Young Communist must practice proletarian internationalism and feel it as his own.”

RevolutionActivismSocialismCommunismRevolutionaryCubaAntiracismInternationalismRevolutionariesChe Guevara
Author:Che Guevara
Create image

“Without or­ganization, ideas, after some initial momentum, start losing their effect. They become routine, degenerate into conformity, and end up simply a memory. I raise this warning because too often, in this short but rich period of our revolution, many great initiatives have failed. They have been forgotten because of the lack of an organiza­tional apparatus needed to keep them going and bring them to frui­tion.”

PoliticsActivismSocialismCommunismSocial Movements
Author:Che Guevara
Create image

“We must bear in mind that imperialism is a world system, the last stage of capitalism-and it must be defeated in a world confrontation. The strategic end of this struggle should be the destruction of imperialism. Our share, the responsibility of the exploited and underdeveloped of the world, is to eliminate the foundations of imperialism: our oppressed nations, from where they extract capital, raw materials, technicians, and cheap labor, and to which they export new capital-instruments of domination-arms and all kinds of articles, thus submerging us in an absolute dependence.”

WorldShouldMindKindEndsLastsNationsFreedomResponsibilityStruggleShareStageMaterialsArmsBearsCapitalismLaborDestructionAbsolutesFoundationInstrumentsAll KindsArticlesDefeatedOppressedDependenceImperialismDominationStrategicConfrontationRaw MaterialsTechniciansCheap Labor
Book:Guerrilla Warfare
Create image

“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.”

PeopleDoeOrderFightingSocialBrotherArmsAngryMiseryConclusionFighterInevitableProtestRespondingOppressorsReformersSocial SystemsUnarmedGuerrillasIgnominyGuerrilla Warfare
Book:Guerrilla Warfare
Create image

“The state sometimes makes mistakes. When one of these mistakes occurs, one notes a decline in collective enthusiasm due to the effect of a quantitative diminution in each of the elements that make up the mass. Work is paralyzed until it is reduced to an insignificant level. It is time to make a correction.”

SometimesStatesWholeIndividualMistakeElementsMassEnthusiasmContributionMaking MistakesCollectivesQuantityDeclineInsignificantDecreaseCorrections
Author:Che Guevara
Create image

“I am not interested in dry economic socialism. We are fighting against misery, but we are also fighting against alienation. One of the fundamental objectives of Marxism is to remove interest, the factor of individual interest, and gain, from people's psychological motivations. Marx was preoccupied both with economic factors and with their repercussions on the spirit. If communism isn't interested in this too, it may be a method of distributing goods, but it will never be a revolutionary way of life.”

PeopleIfsWayMaySpiritMotivationFightingIndividualInterestEconomicGainsMethodFundamentalsMiserySocialismObjectivesPsychologicalFactorsCommunismRevolutionaryDryRemoveGoodsNot InterestedAlienationMarxismRepercussions
Author:Che Guevara
Create image

“We said that each time a country is liberated it is a defeat for the world imperialist system. But we must agree that the break is not achieved by the mere act of proclaiming independence or winning an armed victory in a revolution. It is achieved when imperialist economic domination over a people is brought to an end.”

PeopleWorldRealEndsCountryWinningEconomicRevolutionVictoryAgreeIndependenceMereDefeatLiberationDominationProclaimingBreaking Away
Author:Che Guevara
Create image