Top 198 Quotes & Sayings by Che Guevara

A political event was that I met Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary. He is a young, intelligent guy, very sure of himself and extraordinarily audacious; I think we hit it off well.

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 platitudes.

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. It draws its great force from the mass of the people themselves.

It is unnecessary to say that Fidel Castro possesses the high qualities of a fighter and statesman: our path, our struggle, and our triumph we owed to his vision.

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

The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.

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.

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

How easy it is to govern when one follows a system of consulting the will of the people and one holds as the only norm all the actions which contribute to the well being of the people.

Study hard so that you can master technology, which allows us to master nature.

The only passion that guides me is for the truth... I look at everything from this point of view.

The peasant must always be helped technically, economically, morally and culturally. The guerrilla 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.

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.

I am one of those people who believes that the solution to the world's problems is to be found behind the Iron Curtain.

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.

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.

Passion is needed for any great work, and for the revolution, passion and audacity are required in big doses.

The guerrilla fighters should be required to go to bed and get up at fixed hours. Games that have no social function and that hurt the morale of the troops and the consumption of alcoholic drinks should both be prohibited.

We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.

The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.

I have a wish. It as a fear as well - that in my end will be my beginning.

Silence is argument carried out by other means.

Remember that the revolution is what is important, and each one of us, alone, is worth nothing.

Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel.

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.

It is an illusion to think that the matter can be resolved through words.

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?

To accomplish much you must first lose everything.

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 walls of the educational system must come down. Education should not be a privilege, so the children of those who have money can study.

Democracy cannot consist solely of elections that are nearly always fictitious and managed by rich landowners and professional politicians.

Democracy is not compatible with financial oligarchy.

Let the world change you and you can change the world

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

Above all, try always to be able to feel deeply any injustice committed against any person in any part of the world. It is the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary.

I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.

I would rather die standing up to live life on my knees.

Words without deeds are worthless.

We have no right to believe that freedom can be won without struggle.

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.

Every day People straighten up the hair, why not the heart?

The true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.

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

Youth should learn to think and act as a mass. It is criminal to think as individuals!

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.

The negro has maintained his racial purity by his well known habit of avoiding baths

The best form of saying is doing.

It's not my fault if reality is Marxist

Let's be realistic. Let's do the impossible!

Our youth must always be free, discussing and exchanging ideas concerned with what is happening throughout the entire world.

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

Be realistic, demand the impossible!

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.

The ***** is indolent and lazy, and spends his money on frivolities, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent.

Mexicans are a band of illiterate Indians.

The U.S. is the great enemy of mankind! Against those hyenas there is no option but extermination! If the nuclear missiles had remained (in Cuba) we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S. including New York City!

Justice remains the tool of a few powerful interests; legal interpretations will continue to be made to suit the convenience of the oppressor powers.

Live your life not celebrating victories, but overcoming defeats.

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

One has to grow hard but without ever losing tenderness.