Ernesto Che Guevara Quotes

If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.

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.

Let the world change you and you can change the world

I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves.

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.

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.

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

HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE

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

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

The true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.

I now know, by an almost fatalistic conformity with the facts, that my destiny is to travel...

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.

The revolution is made through human beings, but individuals must forge their revolutionary spirit day by day

I finally felt myself lifted definitively away on the winds of adventure toward worlds I envisaged would be stranger than they were, into situations I imagined would be much more normal than they turned out to be.

El revolucionario vedadero es guiado por gran sentimientos de amor.

سعی کردند که ما را دفن کنند، دریغ از این که ما بذر بودیم...

Wrapped in a police blanket, I watched the rain and smoked one black cigarette after another...

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Don't Shoot! I'm Che. I'm worth more to you alive than dead!

Its tall chimneys throw up black smoke, impregnating everything with soot, and the miners' faces as they traveled the streets were also imbued with that ancient melancholy of smoke, unifying everything with its grayish monotones, a perfect coupling with the gray mountain days.

...I also know - and this won't alter the course of history or your personal view of me - that you will die with a clenched fist and a tense jaw, the epitome of hatred and struggle, because you are not a symbol (some inanimate example) but a genuine member of the society to be destroyed; the spirit of the beehive speaks through your mouth and motivates your actions. You are as useful as I am, but you are not aware of how useful your contribution is to the society that sacrifices you.

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.

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...

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.

I knew that when the great guiding spirit cleaves humanity into two antagonistic halves, I would be with the people. I know this, I see it printed in the night sky that I, eclectic dissembler of doctrine and psychoanalyst of dogma, howling like one possessed, will assault the barricades or the trenches , will take my bloodstained weapon, and consumed with fury, slaughter any enemy who falls into my hands.

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.

At night, after the exhausting games of canasta, we would look out over the immense sea, full of white-flecked and green reflections, the two of us leaning side by side on the railing, each of us far away, flying in his own aircraft to the stratospheric regions of our own dreams. There we understood that our vocation, our true vocation, was to move for eternity along the roads and seas of the world. Always curious, looking into everything that came before our eyes, sniffing out each corner but only ever faintly - not setting down roots in any land or staying long enough to see the substratum of things; the outer limits would suffice.

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

«Se tremes diante de qualquer injustiça, estejas onde for, então somos companheiros»

you will die with a clenched fist and a tense jaw, the epitome of hatred and struggle, because you are not a symbol but a genuine member of the society to be destroyed. You are useful as I am, but you are not aware of how useful your contribution is to the society that sacrifices you

سەروازەکان لە کوشتنی من شەرم دەکەن. بەڵام مردنی من شتێکی پاوەجێیە. زیندووی ئازادی‌خوازێک بەردەوام مەترسیدارە. هەر ژ بۆ ئەوەیە زیندووی منیان ناوێ. وابزانم هەموو دنیا زانیویەتی، کە نرخی ئازادی چییە!. هەر شتێ نرخێکی هەیە. من نرخی ئازادی بە مردنم دەدەم.

Revolution is impersonal; it will take their lives, even utilizing their memory as an example or as an instrument for domesticating the youth who follow them.

This is the Cuzco asking you to pull on your armor and, mounted on the ample back of a powerful horse, cleave a path through the defenseless flesh of a naked Indian flock whose human wall collapses and disappears beneath the four hooves of the galloping beast.

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].

I began to come into close contact with poverty, with hunger, with disease, with the inability to cure a child because of a lack of resources… And I began to see there was something that, at that time, seemed to me almost as important as being a famous researcher or making some substantial contribution to medical science, and this was helping those people.

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.

All night, after the exhausting games of canasta, we would look over the immense sea, full of white-flecked and green reflections, the two of us leaning side by side on the railing, each of us far away, flying in his own aircraft to the stratospheric regions of his own dreams. There we understood that our vocation, our true vocation, was to move for eternity along the roads and seas of the world. Always curious, looking into everything that came before our eyes, sniffing out each corner but only ever faintly--not setting down roots in any land or staying long enough to see the substratum of things the outer limits would suffice.

کوژی ڕاستەقینە کەسێکە خەونەکانت بکوژێت، نەک ئەو کەسەی فیشەکێک دەنێت بە گیانتەوە

I have sworn before a portrait of the late lamented comrade Stalin that I will not rest until I see these capitalist octopuses annihilated.

We must take time to weep for our fallen compañeros while we sharpen our machetes

When asked whether or not we are Marxists, our position is the same as that of a physicist, when asked if he is a “Newtonian” or of a biologist when asked if he is a “Pasteurian.” There are truths so evident, so much a part of the peoples’ knowledge, that it is now useless to debate them. One should be a “Marxist” with the same naturalness with which one is a “Newtonian” in physics or a “Pasteurian.” If new facts bring about new concepts, the latter will never take away that portion of truth possessed by those that have come before. Such is the case, for example, of “Einsteinian” relativity or of Planck’s quantum theory in relation to Newton’s discoveries. They take absolutely nothing away from the greatness of the learned Englishman. Thanks to Newton, physics was able to advance until it achieved new concepts of space. The learned Englishman was the necessary stepping-stone for that. Obviously, one can point to certain mistakes of Marx, as a thinker and as an investigator of the social doctrines and of the capitalist system in which he lived. We Latin Americans, for example, cannot agree with his interpretation of Bolivar, or with his and Engels’ analysis of the Mexicans, which accepted as fact certain theories of race or nationality that are unacceptable today. But the great men who discover brilliant truths live on despite their small faults and these faults serve only to show us they were human. That is to say, they were human beings who could make mistakes, even given the high level of consciousness achieved by these giants of human thought. This is why we recognize the essential truths of Marxism as part of humanity’s body of cultural and scientific knowledge. We accept it with the naturalness of something that requires no further argument.

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.

علمت أنه حين تشق الروح الهادية العظيمة الإنسانية إلى شطرين متصارعين، سأكون الى جانب الشعب

there is nothing that educates an honorable person more than living within a revolution.

In these circumstances people in poor families who can't pay their way are surrounded by an atmosphere of barely disguised acrimony; they stop being father, mother, sister or brother and become a purely negative factor in the struggle for life and, by extension, a source of bitterness for the healthy members of the community who resent their illness as if it were a personal insult to those who have to support them.

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.

And yet every so often, the heart of America, shuddering with indignation, sends a nervous spasm through the gentle back of the Andes, and tumultuous shock waves assault the surface of the land. Three times the cuppola of proud Santo Domingo has collapsed from on high to the rhythm of broken bones and its worn walls have opened and fallen too. But the foundations they rest on are unmoved, the great blocks of the Temple of the Sun exhibit their gray stone indifferently; however colossal the disaster befalling its oppressor, not one of its huge rocks shifts from its place.

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.

Individualism as such, as the isolated action of a person alone in a social environment, must disappear in Cuba. Individualism tomorrow should be the proper utilization of the whole individual, to the absolute benefit of the community.

The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth.

When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law; peace is considered already broken.

Bisogna essere duri senza mai perdere la tenerezza.

Constituimos una sola raza mestiza que desde México hasta el estrecho de Magallanes presenta notables similitudes etnográficas.

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 in order to achieve the goal.

[1965] To my children Dear Hildita, Aleidita, Camilo, Celia, And Ernesto, If you ever have to read this letter, it will be because I am no longer with you. You practically will not remember me, and the smaller ones will not remember me at all. Your father has been a man who acted on his beliefs and has certainly been loyal to his convictions. Grow up as good revolutionaries. Study hard so that you can master technology, which allows us to master nature. Remember that the revolution is what is important, and each one of us, alone is worth nothing. 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. Until forever, my children. I still hope to see you. A great big kiss and a big hug from, Papa

Conduct toward the civil population ought to be regulated by a large respect for all the rules and traditions of the people of the zone, in order to demonstrate effectively, with deeds, the moral superiority of the guerrilla fighter over the oppressing soldier.

E se vale la pena rischiare, io mi gioco anche l'ultimo frammento di cuore.

It is important to emphasize that guerrilla warfare is a war of the masses, a war of the people. The guerrilla band is an armed nucleus, the fighting vanguard of the people.

Ulusal gelirin büyük bir kısmını verimsiz denilen eğitim yatırımlarına harcamak gerekir ve tarım verimliliğinin gelişmesine özellikle dikkat edilmelidir.

أرى نفسي قربانا في الثورة الحقيقية، المعادل العظيم لإرادة الأفراد، المقّر بإقتراف أفدح الأخطاء سابقا

I doubted whether driftwood has the right to say, “I win,” when the tide throws it on to the beach it seeks.

Esse vagar sem rumo pelos caminhos de nossa Maiúscula América me transformou mais do que me dei conta.

Bizi yaşatmakta olan hayallerimizdir! Ernesto 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.

Durante o transcorrer de nove meses, um homem pode pensar em muitas coisas, desde o mais alto conceito filosófico até o desejo mais abjeto por um prato de sopa – tudo de acordo com o estado de seu estômago. E se, ao mesmo tempo, esse homem for do tipo aventureiro, ele poderá viver experiências que talvez interessem às demais pessoas e seu relato casual se parecerá com este diário.

Apart from whether collectivism, the “communist vermin,” is a danger to decent life, the communism gnawing at his entrails was no more than a natural longing for something better, a protest against persistent hunger transformed into a love for this strange doctrine, whose essence he could never grasp but whose translation, “bread for the poor,” was something which he understood and, more importantly, filled him with hope.

Người viết những dòng nhật ký này đã không còn là con người của ngày xưa nữa khi đặt chân trở lại mảnh đất Argentina. Cuộc hành trình xuyên châu Mỹ - châu Mỹ (America) với chữ A viết hoa – đã làm thay đổi con người trong tôi nhiều hơn tôi tưởng. Tôi biết tôi không thể sống một cuộc sống bó hẹp, chật chội trong những khuôn khổ được nữa. Điều đó dường như đã tiềm ẩn từ lâu trong tôi dù chưa rõ ràng, và chuyến hành trình này đã khơi dậy tất cả.

No se vive celebrando victorias, sino superando derrotas.

İfade özgürlüğü bir mitten başka bir şey değil.

The enormity of our endeavor escaped us in those moments, all we could see was the dust on the road ahead and ourselves on the bike, devouring kilometers in the flight northward.

I doubted whether driftwood has the right to say, "I win," when the tide throws it on to the beach it seeks.

The sea danced on the small stretch of beach, indifferent to its own eternal law and spawning its own note of caution.

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

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.

There we understood that our vocation, our true vocation, was to move for eternity along the roads and seas of the world. Always curious, looking into everything that came before our eyes, sniffing out each corner but only ever faintly — not setting down roots in any land or staying long enough to see the substratum of things; the outer limits would suffice. As all the sentimental themes the sea inspires passed through our conversation, the lights of Antofagasta began to shine in the distance, to the northeast. It was the end of our adventure as stowaways, or at least the end of this adventure now that our boat was returning to Valparaíso. ESTA VEZ, FRACASO this time, disaster I can see him now clearly, the drunk captain, like all his officers and the owner of the vessel alongside with his great big mustache, their crude gestures the results of bad wine. And the wild laughter as they recounted our odyssey. “Hey listen, they’re tigers, they’re on your boat now for sure, you’ll find out when you’re out to sea.” The captain must have let slip to his friend and colleague this or some similar phrase. We

In the so called mistakes of Stalin lies the difference between a revolutionary attitude and a revisionist attitude. You have to look at Stalin in the historical context in which he moves, you don’t have to look at him as some kind of brute, but in that particular historical context. I have come to communism because of daddy Stalin and nobody must come and tell me that I mustn’t read Stalin. I read him when it was very bad to read him. That was another time. And because I’m not very bright, and a hard-headed person, I keep on reading him. Especially in this new period, now that it is worse to read him. Then, as well as now, I still find a Seri of things that are very good.

He interprets the desires of the great peasant mass to be owners of land, owners of their means of production, of their animals, of all that which they have long yearned to call their own, of that which constitutes their life and will also serve as their cemetery.

As we left, the man at the desk told us to take our dog with us, and to our amazement showed us a puppy that had done its business on the lobby carpet and was gnawing at a chair leg. The dog had probably followed us, attracted by our hobo appearance, and the doorman imagined it was just another accessory of our eccentric attire. Anyway, the poor animal, robbed of the bond linking him to us, got a good kick up the ass and was thrown out howling. Still, it was always consoling to know that some living thing’s well-being depended on our protection.

There we understood that our vocation, our true vocation, was to move for eternity along the roads and seas of the world. Always curious, looking into everything that came before our eyes, sniffing out each corner but only ever faintly — not setting down roots in any land or staying long enough to see the substratum of things; the outer limits would suffice.

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.

Todos eles, todos os que não conseguirem se adaptar – você ou eu, por exemplo – morrerão amaldiçoando o poder que ajudaram a fazer surgir com sacrifícios muitas vezes enormes. A revolução é impessoal, vai levar suas vidas e até mesmo utilizará suas memórias como um exemplo ou como instrumento para controlar os jovens que surgirem depois deles. Meu pecado é ainda maior porque eu, mais sutil ou mais experiente, chame do que quiser, vou morrer sabendo que o meu sacrifício está fundado apenas na teimosia que simboliza nossa civilização apodrecida e decadente. Eu sei também – e isso não mudará o curso da história ou mesmo sua impressão pessoal a meu respeito – que você morrerá com seu punho cerrado e sua mandíbula tensa, porque você não é um símbolo (um exemplo inanimado), mas sim um autêntico membro da sociedade que deve ser destruída; o espírito da colméia fala através de sua boca e move-se através de seus atos. Você é tão útil quanto eu, mas não percebe quão útil é sua contribuição para a sociedade que o sacrifica.

Há empresas que identificam a qualidade com a contra-revolução e que consideram que a qualidade é um vício capitalista e que nesta época de socialismo não é necessário se preocupar com isso (...) Para garantir a poupança, para assegurar a produção, a qualidade é constantemente sacrificada (...) já discutimos, não é o suficiente, mas temos insistido (...) que o desenvolvimento socialista e o desenvolvimento social de um país governado com justiça é feito para o homem. não para alguma enteléquia (...) A beleza não é contrária à revolução. Fazer um utensílio de uso comum que seja feio, quando existe a possibilidade de fazê-lo bonito, é realmente uma falha, e aí vem a bomba: porque às vezes os companheiros acham que para o povo qualquer coisa está bom, que se recebe alguma coisa de má qualidade (...) se o abastecimento não está sendo bem cuidado (...) e se o povo reclama é porque é contra-revolucionário. e isso é totalmente falso: o povo não gosta de algumas coisas que por desgraça acabam acontecendo e é por isso que estamos aqui.

Contra-revolucionário é aquele que luta contra a revolução, mas também é contra-revolucionária a pessoa que utiliza sua influência para conseguir uma casa, depois para conseguir dois carros, depois viola o racionamento e, por fim, tem tudo o que o povo não tem.

O imperialismo sabe ou não sabe o que a União Soviética é capaz de fazer para nos defender? (...) Se errarem, destruirão o imperialismo até suas raízes, mas de nós também sobrará muito pouco; por isso temos que lutar pela paz com convicção.

Aconteça o que acontecer, continuaremos sendo uma pequena dor de cabeça sempre que cheguemos até esta Assembléia ou a qualquer outra, porque estamos dispostos a chamar as coisas pelos seus devidos nomes e a dizer que os representantes dos Estados Unidos são os agentes da repressão no mundo inteiro.

Só se é revolucionário quando se está disposto a deixar todas as comodidades para ir lutar em outro país.

Ele [Che] nunca deixou um prisioneiro sem cuidados, mas lhe deram apenas uma aspirina para curar um tiro.

Por curiosidade estatística, tomei notas de todos os inimigos que, segundo os narradores, haviam morrido em combate, e o resultado era maior que o total do grupo que tinha nos enfrentado; a fantasia de cada um havia enfeitado suas façanhas, Com esta e outras experiências similares, aprendemos claramente que os dados devem ser comprovado por várias pessoas; e até, em nosso exagero, exigíamos objetos de cada soldado morto para considerá-lo realmente como uma baixa do inimigo, já que a preocupação pela verdade sempre foi fundamental nas informações do exército rebelde, e tentávamos infundir nos companheiros o profundo respeito por ela e pela percepção do quanto era necessário colocar a verdade acima de qualquer vantagem transitória.

Ao entrar no esburacado quartel de Uvero, Che encontra o tenente da guarnição, Pedro Pascual Carrera, que está no chão, ferido, e que diz saber que vão matá-lo. Che explica-lhe que eles não são assassinos e que respeitam os feridos, e ele mesmo lhe faz o último curativo. Carrera salvará Cilleros, impedindo que seja levado a Santiago, e mais tarde será interrogado por Batista. Do seu relato: "Um deles falou comigo. era um chefe e me tratou corretamente, apesar de termos lhe causado várias baixas; é um homem que não fala como nós e é médico. Então, o próprio Batista, interrompendo-me, disse: 'Esse é o Che, um renegado comunista!' E a seguir eu disse que tinha a certeza de que os rebeldes devolveriam meus companheiros que haviam levado. Então Tabernilla interveio: "Cale a boca, seu merda. Está fazendo a propaganda desses bandidos? Nossos companheiros já devem estar mortos". Daí a três dias, os companheiros apareceram sãos e salvos.

Os militares não dão cultura ao povo, porque se o povo tivesse cultura não os aceitaria.

We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.” —Ernesto Che Guevara

My tired eyes refused to sleep and in them a pair of green spots swirled, representing the world I had left for dead behind me and mocking the so-called liberation I sought. They harnessed their image to my extraordinary flight across the lands and seas of the world.

Its vast and jarring rhythm hammered at the fortress within me and threatened its imposing serenity.