Antonio Gramsci: Quotes about history

Antonio Gramsci was Italian writer, politician, theorist, sociologist and linguist. Explore interesting quotes on history.
Antonio Gramsci: 44 quotes24 likes

“History is at once freedom and necessity.”

Antonio Gramsci

Selections from the Prison Notebooks (1971).

“History teaches, but it has no pupils.”

Antonio Gramsci

Letter from Prison (21 June 1919), translated by Hamish Henderson, Edinburgh University Student Publications.

“The history of education shows that every class which has sought to take power has prepared itself for power by an autonomous education. The first step in emancipating oneself from political and social slavery is that of freeing the mind. I put forward this new idea: popular schooling should be placed under the control of the great workers’ unions. The problem of education is the most important class problem.”

Antonio Gramsci

Cited in Davidson's (1977) Antonio Gramsci: Towards an Intellectual Biography. London: Merlin Press., p. 77.

“Revolutionaries see history as a creation of their own spirit, as being made up of a continuous series of violent tugs at the other forces of society - both active and passive, and they prepare the maximum of favourable conditions for the definitive tug”

Antonio Gramsci

revolution
Selections from the Prison Notebooks (1971).