1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini Quotes

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician and journalist who was the leader of the National Fascist Party . He ruled Italy as Prime Minister from 1922 to 1943; he constitutionally led the country until 1925, when he dropped the pretense of democracy and established a dictatorship.

Known as Il Duce , Mussolini was the founder of Italian Fascism. In 1912, Mussolini had been a leading member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party , but was expelled from the PSI for advocating military intervention in World War I, in opposition to the party's stance on neutrality. Mussolini served in the Royal Italian Army during the war until he was wounded and discharged in 1917. Mussolini denounced the PSI, his views now centering on nationalism instead of socialism and later founded the fascist movement which came to oppose egalitarianism and class conflict, instead advocating "revolutionary nationalism" transcending class lines. Following the March on Rome in October 1922, Mussolini became the youngest Prime Minister in Italian history until the appointment of Matteo Renzi in February 2014. After removing all political opposition through his secret police and outlawing labor strikes, Mussolini and his followers consolidated their power through a series of laws that transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship. Within five years, Mussolini had established dictatorial authority by both legal and extraordinary means and aspired to create a totalitarian state. In 1929, Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty with the Vatican, ending decades of struggle between the Italian state and the Papacy, and recognized the independence of Vatican City.

After the Abyssinia Crisis of 1935–1936, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in the Second Italo–Ethiopian War. The invasion was condemned by the Western powers and was answered with economic sanctions against Italy. Relations between Germany and Italy improved due to Hitler's support of the invasion. In 1936, Mussolini surrendered Austria to the German sphere of influence, signed the treaty of cooperation with Germany and proclaimed the creation of a Rome–Berlin Axis. From 1936 through 1939, Mussolini provided huge amounts of military support to Franco's forces in the Spanish Civil War. This active intervention further distanced Italy from France and Britain. Mussolini had sought to delay a major war in Europe, but Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, resulting in declarations of war by France and the UK and the start of World War II. On 10 June 1940—with the Fall of France imminent—Italy officially entered the war on the side of Germany, though Mussolini was aware that Italy did not have the military capacity and resources to carry out a long war with the British Empire. He believed that after the imminent French armistice, Italy could gain territorial concessions from France, and he could then concentrate his forces on a major offensive in North Africa, where British and Commonwealth forces were outnumbered by Italian forces. However, the British government refused to accept proposals for a peace that would involve accepting Axis victories in Eastern and Western Europe; plans for an invasion of the UK did not proceed and the war continued. In October 1940, Mussolini sent Italian forces into Greece, starting the Greco-Italian War. The invasion failed and the following Greek counter-offensive pushed the Italians back to occupied Albania. The Greek debacle and simultaneous defeats against the British in North Africa reduced Italy to dependence on Germany.

Beginning in June 1941, Mussolini sent Italian forces to participate in the invasion of the Soviet Union, and Italy declared war on the United States in December. In 1943, Italy suffered one disaster after another: by February the Red Army had completely destroyed the Italian Army in Russia; in May the Axis collapsed in North Africa; on 9 July the Allies invaded Sicily; and by the 16th it became clear the German summer offensive in the USSR had failed. As a consequence, early on 25 July, the Grand Council of Fascism passed a motion of no confidence for Mussolini; later that day the King dismissed him as head of government and had him placed in custody, appointing Pietro Badoglio to succeed him as Prime Minister. On 12 September 1943, Mussolini was rescued from captivity in the Gran Sasso raid by German paratroopers and Waffen-SS commandos led by Major Otto-Harald Mors.

Adolf Hitler, after meeting with the rescued former dictator, then put Mussolini in charge of a puppet regime in northern Italy, the Italian Social Republic , informally known as the Salò Republic. In late April 1945, in the wake of near total defeat, Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci attempted to flee to Switzerland, but both were captured by Italian communist partisans and summarily executed by firing squad on 28 April 1945 near Lake Como. His body was then taken to Milan, where it was hung upside down at a service station to publicly confirm his demise.

✵ 29. July 1883 – 28. April 1945
Benito Mussolini photo

Works

The Doctrine of Fascism
The Doctrine of Fascism
Benito Mussolini
My Autobiography
My Autobiography
Benito Mussolini
The Doctrine of Fascism
The Doctrine of Fascism
Benito Mussolini
My Autobiography
My Autobiography
Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini: 127 quotes38 likes

Famous Benito Mussolini Quotes

“The Socialists ask what is our program? Our program is to smash the heads of the Socialists.”

Benito Mussolini

Article in Popolo d'Italia, quoted in "A History of Terrorism" (2001) by Walter Laqueur, p. 71
Undated

“All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”

Benito Mussolini

Speech to Chamber of Deputies (9 December 1928), quoted in Propaganda and Dictatorship (2007) by Marx Fritz Morstein, p. 48
1920s

“For this I have been and am a socialist.”

Benito Mussolini

The accusation of inconsistency has no foundation. My conduct has always been straight in the sense of looking at the substance of things and not to the form. I adapted socialisticamente to reality. As the evolution of society belied many of the prophecies of Marx, the true socialism folded from possible to probable. The only feasible socialism socialisticamente is corporatism, confluence, balance and justice interests compared to the collective interest.
As quoted in “Soliloquy for ‘freedom’ Trimellone island”, on the Italian Island of Trimelone, journalist Ivanoe Fossani, one of the last interviews of Mussolini, March 20, 1945, from Opera omnia, vol. 32. Interview is also known as "Testament of Benito Mussolini, or Testamento di Benito Mussolini. Also published under “Mussolini confessed to the stars”, Publishing House Latinitas, Rome, 1952. (Intervista di Ivanoe Fossani, Soliloquio in “libertà” all'isola Trimellone, Isola del Trimellone, 20 marzo 1945)
1940s

“We deny the existence of two classes, because there are many more than two classes. We deny that human history can be explained in terms of economics. We deny your internationalism. That is a luxury article which only the elevated can practise, because peoples are passionately bound to their native soil.
We affirm that the true story of capitalism is now beginning, because capitalism is not a system of oppression only, but is also a selection of values, a coordination of hierarchies, a more amply developed sense of individual responsibility.”

Benito Mussolini

Speech (21 June 1921), Ion Smeaton Munro, Through Fascism to World Power: A History of the Revolution in Italy, 27 January 2008 http://books.google.com/books?id=DML39RmvsmYC&amp;pg=PA120&amp;dq=%E2%80%9CWe+deny+your+internationalism%22+mussolini&amp;lr=&amp;sig=gTHVLgfaIKPCn_jW8f0phjDKrAI, <br class="br">1920s

“You want to know what fascism is like? It is like your New Deal!”

Benito Mussolini

As quoted by Mussolini in Mr. New York: The Autobiography of Grover A. Whalen by Grover Aloysius Whalen, G.P. Putnam’s Sons (1955) p. 188. Mussolini explained Fascism to Whalen in 1939.
Undated

“You cannot get rid of me because I am and always will be a socialist. You hate me because you still love me.”

Benito Mussolini

Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini: A Biography (1983) p. 8. As quoted by Mussolini after he was expelled from the Italian Socialist Party in 1914.
1910s

Benito Mussolini Quotes about war

“"The Doctrine of Fascism", June 1932. Quoted in Paul O'Brien, Mussolini in the First World War: The Journalist, the Soldier, the Fascist. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014. Also in Peter N. Stearns, World History in Documents: A Comparative Reader. NYU Press, 2008.”

Benito Mussolini

“War is to man what motherhood is to a woman. From a philosophical and doctrinal viewpoint, I do not believe in perpetual peace.”

Benito Mussolini

Speech to the Chamber of Deputies (28 April 1939), quoted in The Military Quotation Book (2002) by James Charlton, p. 2
1930s

“The law of socialism is that of the desert: a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye. Socialism is a rude and bitter truth, which was born in the conflict of opposing forces and in violence. Socialism is war, and woe to those who are cowardly in war. They will be defeated.”

Benito Mussolini

As quoted in Il Duce: The Life and Work of Benito Mussolini, L. Kemechey, New York: NY, Richard R. Smith (1930) p. 56. Written just before taking editorship of the Italian Socialist Party newspaper Avanti in 1912.
1910s

“The watchword is only one, categorical and challenging for everyone. It already flies across and lights the hearts from the Alps to the Indian Ocean: Winning! And we will win, in order to finally give a long period of peace with justice to Italy, to Europe, to the world. **From the declaration of war's announce, 10 June 1940”

Benito Mussolini

1940s

“Above all, Fascism, in so far as it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism — born of a renunciation of struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it. All other trials are substitutes, which never really put a man in front of himself in the alternative of life and death.”

Benito Mussolini book The Doctrine of Fascism

"The Doctrine of Fascism" (1932), credited to Mussolini but ghostwritten by Giovanni Gentile; quoted in Fascism, Anti-Fascism, and the Resistance in Italy : 1919 to the Present (2004) by Stanislao G. Pugliese, p. 89
1930s

“Three cheers for the war. Three cheers for Italy's war and three cheers for war in general. Peace is hence absurd or rather a pause in war.”

Benito Mussolini

Popolo d'Italia (Feb. 1, 1921), quoted in The Menace of Fascism, John Strachey (1933) p. 65
1920s

Benito Mussolini Quotes about people

“Comrade Tassinari was right in stating that for a revolution to be great, for it to make a deep impression on the life of the people and on history, it must be a social revolution.”

Benito Mussolini

Speech to the National Corporative Council (November 14, 1933), in A Primer of Italian Fascism, edited/translated by Jeffrey T. Schnapp (2000) p.163.
1930s

“The Truth Apparent, apparent to everyone's eyes who are not blinded by dogmatism, is that men are perhaps weary of liberty. They have a surfeit of it. Liberty is no longer the virgin, chaste and severe, to be fought for … we have buried the putrid corpse of liberty … the Italian people are a race of sheep.”

Benito Mussolini

Written statement (1934), quoted in Fascism and Democracy in the Human Mind : A Bridge Between Mind and Society (2006) by Israel W. Charny, p. 23 <br class="br">Variant translation: The truth is that men are tired of liberty. <br class="br">Attributed to Mussolini in Crash Gordon and the Mysteries of Kingsburg (2007) by Derek Swannson, p. 507; similar remarks are also attributed to Adolf Hitler <br class="br">A similar statement appears in &quot;Forza e Consenso&quot; Gerarchia magazine (March 1923), excerpted in Cos&#x27;è il fascismo https://www.liberliber.it/online/autori/autori-m/benito-mussolini/cose-il-fascismo/ (1983) <br class="br">1930s

“War is the normal state of the people.”

Benito Mussolini

"Duce (1922-42)" in TIME magazine (August 2, 1943)
1940s

“Fortunately the Italian people has not yet accustomed itself to eat many times a day, and possessing a modest level of living, it feels deficiency and suffering less.”

Benito Mussolini

Carol F. Helstosky, Garlic and Oil: Food and Politics in Italy (2006)
Undated

“Speeches made to the people are essential to the arousing of enthusiasm for a war.”

Benito Mussolini

As quoted in Talks with Mussolini, Emil Ludwig, Boston, MA, Little, Brown and Company (1933). Mussolini’s interview was in 1932.
1930s

“Militarism! Here is the monstrous leech that is incessantly sucking the blood of the people and its best energy! Here is the target for our attacks! We must put an end to barbarism, proclaim that the army is now a highly organized school of crime and that it exists solely to protect bourgeois capital and profits. We must not be deterred from proclaiming ourselves international socialists. We recognize no borders and no flags, we hate all steel, every institution that exist to kill men, waste energy, strangle the advance of the workers.”

Benito Mussolini

Mussolini's article, (April 11, 1909), quoted in The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution, Jacob Talmon, University of California Press (1981) p. 487,
1900s

Benito Mussolini: Trending quotes

“As the past century was the century of capitalist power, the twentieth century is the century of power and glory of labour.”

Benito Mussolini

Four Speeches on the Corporate State, Rome, (1935) pp. 39-40. Speech delivered to the workers in Milan. Eric Jabbari, Pierre Laroque and the Welfare State in Postwar France, Oxford University Press, (2012) p. 46
Context: Fascism establishes the real equality of individuals before the nation… the object of the regime in the economic field is to ensure higher social justice for the whole of the Italian people… What does social justice mean? It means work guaranteed, fair wages, decent homes, it means the possibility of continuous evolution and improvement. Nor is this enough. It means that the workers must enter more and more intimately into the productive process and share its necessary discipline… As the past century was the century of capitalist power, the twentieth century is the century of power and glory of labour.

“For Fascism, the growth of Empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence.”

Benito Mussolini

Context: For Fascism, the growth of Empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence. Peoples which are rising, or rising again after a period of decadence, are always imperialist; any renunciation is a sign of decay and of death. Fascism is the doctrine best adapted to represent the tendencies and the a people, like the people of Italy, who are rising again after many centuries of abasement and foreign servitude. But Empire demands discipline, the coordination of all forces and a deeply felt sense of duty and sacrifice.

“I declare that henceforth capital and labor shall have equal rights and duties as brothers in the fascist family.”

Benito Mussolini

As quoted in The Fate of Trade Unions Under Fascism https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735061539114/viewer#page/2/mode/2up, by Gaetano Salvemini, Chap. 3: “Italian Trade Unions under Fascism”, New York, NY, published by the Anti-Fascist Literature Committee, (1937), p. 35, Mussolini’s statement (Feb. 1928) <br class="br">1930s

Benito Mussolini Quotes

“We do not argue with those who disagree with us, we destroy them.”

Benito Mussolini

The Lazio Speeches (1936), as quoted in The Book of Italian Wisdom by Antonio Santi, Citadel Press, 2003. p. 88.
1930s

“Fascism entirely agrees with Mr. Maynard Keynes”

Benito Mussolini

As quoted from Mussolini's review of Keynes' new book in Universal Aspects of Fascism, James Strachey Barnes, Williams and Norgate, London: UK, (1928) pp. 113-114
Context: Fascism entirely agrees with Mr. Maynard Keynes, despite the latter's prominent position as a Liberal. In fact, Mr. Keynes' excellent little book, The End of Laissez-Faire (1926) might, so far as it goes, serve as a useful introduction to fascist economics. There is scarcely anything to object to in it and there is much to applaud.

“The Fascist State directs and controls the entrepreneurs, whether it be in our fisheries or in our heavy industry in the Val d'Aosta. There the State actually owns the mines and carries on transport, for the railways are state property. So are many of the factories… We term it state intervention… If anything fails to work properly, the State intervenes. The capitalists will go on doing what they are told, down to the very end. They have no option and cannot put up any fight. Capital is not God; it is only a means to an end.”

Benito Mussolini

As quoted in Talks with Mussolini, Emil Ludwig, Boston, MA, Little, Brown and Company (1933), pp. 153-154, Interview took place between March 23 and April 4, 1932
1930s

“Silence is the only answer you should give to the fools. Where ignorance speaks, intelligence should not give advices.”

Benito Mussolini

The Lazio Speeches (1936), as quoted in The Book of Italian Wisdom by Antonio Santi, Citadel Press, (2003) p. 87.
1930s

“We are fighting to impose a higher social justice.”

Benito Mussolini

The others are fighting to maintain the privileges of caste and class. We are proletarian nations that rise up against the plutocrats.
As quoted in “Soliloquy for ‘freedom’ Trimellone island”, on the Italian Island of Trimelone, journalist Ivanoe Fossani, one of the last interviews of Mussolini, March 20, 1945, from Opera omnia, vol. 32. Interview is also known as "Testament of Benito Mussolini, or Testamento di Benito Mussolini. Also published under “Mussolini confessed to the stars”, Publishing House Latinitas, Rome, 1952. (Intervista di Ivanoe Fossani, Soliloquio in “libertà” all'isola Trimellone, Isola del Trimellone, 20 marzo 1945)
1940s

“For us the national flag is a rag to be planted on a dunghill. There are only two fatherlands in the world: that of the exploited and that of the exploiters.”

Benito Mussolini

La Lotta di Classe (1910), while a socialist, paraphrasing French socialist Gustave Hervé, quoted in Mussolini in the Making (1938) by Gaudens Megaro
Variant translation: The national flag is a rag that should be placed in a dunghill.
As quoted in Aspects of European History, 1789-1980 (1988) by Stephen J. Lee, p. 191
1910s

“Better to live a day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.”

Benito Mussolini

Attributed in &quot;Duce (1922-42)&quot; in TIME magazine (2 August 1943) <br class="br">Also quoted by Generale Armando Diaz in &quot;Il pensiero dei leoni&quot; in Il Carroccio. The Italian review (1922) attributed to graffiti by an unknown soldier https://archive.org/stream/ilcarroccioitali15newyuoft#page/14/mode/2up <br class="br">Though not precisely a repetition of any of them, this is somewhat resembles far earlier remarks attributed to others: <br class="br">An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep. <br class="br">Attributed to Alexander the Great, in The British Battle Fleet : Its Inception and Growth Throughout the Centuries to the Present Day (1915) by Frederick Thomas Jane <br class="br">To live like a lion for a day is far better than to live like a jackal for a hundred years. <br class="br">Tipu Sultan, as quoted in Encyclopedia of Asian History (1988) Vol. 4, p. 104 <br class="br">It is far better to live like a tiger for a day than to live like a jackal for a hundred years. <br class="br">Tipu Sultan, as quoted in Tipu Sultan : A Study in Diplomacy and Confrontation (1982) by B. Sheikh Ali, p. 329 <br class="br">I should prefer an army of stags led by a lion, to an army of lions led by a stag. <br class="br">Chabrias, as quoted in A Treatise on the Defence of Fortified Places (1814) by Lazare Carnot, p. 50 <br class="br">He has been frequently heard to say, that in this world he would rather live two days like a tiger, than two hundred years like a sheep. <br class="br">Tipu Sultan, as quoted in A View of the Origin and Conduct of the War with Tippoo Sultaun; Comprising a Narrative of the Operations of the Army under the Command of Lieutenant-General George Harris, and of the Siege of Seringapatam (London, G. and W. Nicol, 1800) by Alexander Beatson, pp. 153-154. http://oudl.osmania.ac.in/bitstream/handle/OUDL/7905/212261_Origin_And_Conduct_Of_The_War_With_Tipoo_Sultaun.pdf https://indianhistorybooks3.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/99999990039373-view-of-the-origin-and-conduct-of-the-war-with-tipoo-sultan.pdf <br class="br">1940s

“Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State; and it is for the individual in so far as he coincides with the State.... It is opposed to classical Liberalism.... Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular individual; Fascism reaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual.”

Benito Mussolini book The Doctrine of Fascism

"The Doctrine of Fascism" Firenze: Vallecchi Editore (1935 version), p. 13
1930s

“State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention may take the form of control, assistance or direct management.”

Benito Mussolini

Quoted from “The Labor Charter: The Corporate State and its Organization”, promulgated by Mussolini's Grand Council of Fascism, Article 9, (April 21, 1927) Copy found in Mediterranean Fascism 1919-1945, Charles F. Delzell, The MacMillan Press, (1971) p. 122. Also in Benito Mussolini’s “Doctrine of Fascism”, published as “Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions” (1935), Rome: Ardita Publishers, p.135-136.
1920s

“Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State.”

Benito Mussolini

“The Doctrine of Fascism” (1935 version), Firenze: Vallecchi Editore, p. 15
1930s

“Let us have a dagger between our teeth, a bomb in our hands and an infinite scorn in our hearts.”

Benito Mussolini

Speech (1928), as quoted in The Great Quotations (1966) by George Seldes, p. 349
1920s

“It is no longer economy aiming at individual profit, but economy concerned with collective interest.”

Benito Mussolini

Mussolini, Four Speeches on the Corporate State, Laboremus, Roma, 1935, p. 38
1930s

“If I advance; follow me! If I retreat; kill me! If I die; avenge me!”

Benito Mussolini

Attributed to Mussolini by G. K. Chesterton in G. K's Weekly (1925), and later appearing in "Duce (1922-42)" in TIME magazine (2 August 1943), this actually originates with Henri de la Rochejaquelein (1793), as quoted in Narrative of the French Expedition in Egypt, and the Operations in Syria (1816) by Jacques Miot
Attributed

“The best blood will at some time get into a fool or a mosquito.”

Benito Mussolini

Austin O'Malley, in Keystones of Thought (1914), p. 27
Attributed

“I bequeath the republic to the republicans and not to the monarchists, and the work of social reform to the socialist and not to the middle class.”

Benito Mussolini

Joshua Muravchik, as quoted in Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism, Encounter Books (2002) p. 170.
Undated

“I owe most to Georges Sorel. This master of syndicalism by his rough theories of revolutionary tactics has contributed most to form the discipline, energy and power of the fascist cohorts.”

Benito Mussolini

As Quoted in The New Inquisitions: Heretic-Hunting and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Totalitarianism, Arthur Versluis, Oxford University Press (2006) p. 39.
Undated

“Lenin is an artist who has worked men, as other artists have worked marble or metals. But men are harder than stone and less malleable than iron. There is no masterpiece. The artist has failed. The task was superior to his capacities.”

Benito Mussolini

Popolo d'Italia (14 July 1920) "The Artificer and the Material," quoted in Mussolini in the Making (1938) by Gaudens Megaro, p. 326
1920s

“Although we can discuss the question of what socialism is, what is its program and what are its tactics, one thing is obvious: the official Italian Socialist Party has been reactionary and absolutely conservative.”

Benito Mussolini

Mussolini's March 23, 1919 speech to announce the first Fasci di Combattimento (League of Combat). Published in Fascism, Anti-Fascism and the Resistance in Italy: 1919 to the Present, Stanislao G. Pugliese, Lanham: Maryland, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (2004) p. 43
1910s

“This is the epitaph I want on my tomb: "Here lies one of the most intelligent animals who ever appeared on the face of the Earth."”

Benito Mussolini

Remark to Galeazzo Ciano (December 19, 1937) quoted in The Book of Italian Wisdom (2003) by Antonio Santi, p. 50
1930s

“…It was therefore not sufficient to create—as some have said superficially—an anti-altar to the altar of socialism. It was necessary to imagine a wholly new political conception, adequate to the living reality of the twentieth century, overcoming at the same time the ideological worship of liberalism, the limited horizons of various spent and exhausted democracies, and finally the violently Utopian spirit of Bolshevism.”

Benito Mussolini book My Autobiography

My Autobiography, New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1928. Reprinted in Benito Mussolini, My Rise And Fall, Volumes 1-2 Da Capo Press, 1998 (p. 68-9)
1920s

“Thirty centuries of history allow us to look with supreme pity on certain doctrines which are preached beyond the Alps by the descendants of those who were illiterate when Rome had Caesar, Virgil and Augustus.”

Benito Mussolini

Speech at the 5th Levantine Fair (6 September 1934) in reference to German Nordicism; quoted in Hitler&#x27;s Ten-year War on the Jews http://books.google.com/books?id=vCA4AAAAIAAJ&amp;q=%22Thirty+centuries+of+history+allow+us+to+look+with+supreme+pity%22&amp;dq=%22Thirty+centuries+of+history+allow+us+to+look+with+supreme+pity%22&amp;pgis=1 (1946) by the Institute of Jewish Affairs <br class="br">1930s

“We want an extraordinary heavy taxation, with a progressive character, on capital, that will represent an authentic partial expropriation of all wealth; seizures of all assets of religious congregations and suppression of all the ecclesiastic Episcopal revenues, in what constitutes an enormous deficit of the nation and a privilege for a minority; revisions of all contracts made by the war ministers and seizure of 85% of all war profits.”

Benito Mussolini

From Mussolini's Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (Italian Combat Fasci), Il Popolo d'Italia newspaper, June 6, 1919. Speech published in Revolutionary Fascism, by Erik Norling, Lisbon, Finis Mundi Press (2011) p. 92.
1910s

“Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy. You in America will see that some day.”

Benito Mussolini

to Edwin L. James of the New York Times (1928)
1920s

“We declare war against socialism, not because it is socialism, but because it has opposed nationalism…. We intend to be an active minority, attract the proletariat away from the official Socialist party. But if the middle class thinks that we are going to be their lightning rods, they are mistaken.”

Benito Mussolini

Mussolini’s speech in Milan (March 23, 1919), quoted in Stanislao G. Pugliese, Fascism, Anti-fascism, and the Resistance in Italy: 1919 to the Present, Oxford, England, UK, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., (2004) p. 43
1910s

“The struggle between the two worlds [Fascism and Democracy] can permit no compromises. The new cycle which begins with the ninth year of the Fascist regime places the alternative in even greater relief — either we or they, either their ideas or ours, either our State or theirs!”

Benito Mussolini

"Fundamentals of critical argumentation" (2005) by Douglas Walton, p. 243
Undated

“Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived in their relation to the State.”

Benito Mussolini book The Doctrine of Fascism

"The Doctrine of Fascism" (1932), quoted in The New York Times (11 January 1935)
1930s

“"The Doctrine of Fascism", June 1932. Quoted in Marco Piraino, Stefano Fiorito, Fascist identity : political project and doctrine of facism. Lulu. com, 2009. (p. 107)”

Benito Mussolini

“[Marx was] the magnificent philosopher of working class violence.”

Benito Mussolini

As quoted by Mussolini in From George Sorel: Essays in Socialism and Philosophy by John L. Stanley (1987) p. 4.
Undated

“Three-fourths of the Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state. And if I dare to introduce to Italy state capitalism or state socialism, which is the reverse side of the medal, I will have the necessary subjective and objective conditions to do it.”

Benito Mussolini

The Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economy Since Unification, by Gianni Toniolo, editor, Oxford University Press (2013) p. 59. Mussolini’s speech to the Chamber of Deputies on May 26, 1934.
1930s

“Italy is not a capitalist country according to the meaning now conventionally assigned to that term.”

Benito Mussolini

Address to the National Corporative Council (November 14, 1933), in A Primer of Italian Fascism, edited/translated by Jeffrey T. Schnapp (2000) p 160.
1930s

“Liberty is a duty, not a right.”

Benito Mussolini

Speech on the 5th anniversary of the Combat Leagues (24 March 1924) quoted in Ezra Pound and Italian Fascism (1991) by Tim Redman, p. 114.
1920s

“The Fascist State has never tried to create its own God, as at one moment Robespierre and the wildest extremists of the Convention tried to do; nor does it vainly seek to obliterate religion from the hearts of men as does Bolshevism: Fascism respects the God of the ascetics, of the saints, of the heroes, and also God as seen and prayed to by the simple and primitive heart of the people.”

Benito Mussolini book The Doctrine of Fascism

The Doctrine of Fascism, June 1932. Quoted in Charles Floyd Delzell, Mediterranean Fascism, 1919-45 Springer, 1971
1930s

“I am not a collector of deserts!”

Benito Mussolini

Remark to Pierre Laval (Jan. 5, 1935) on a proposed Ethiopian border, quoted in Duce!: A Biography of Benito Mussolini (1971) by Richard Collier, p. 125
1930s

“When the war is over, in the world's social revolution that will be followed by a more equitable distribution of the earth's riches, due account must be kept of the sacrifices and of the discipline maintained by the Italian workers. The Fascist revolution will make another decisive step to shorten social distances.”

Benito Mussolini

Mussolini’s speech in Rome, Italy, February 23, 1941. Published in the New York Times, February 24, 1941.
1940s

“I want to make my own life a masterpiece.”

Benito Mussolini

Talks with Mussolini (1932), quoting earlier remarks <br class="br">As quoted in &quot; Duce (1922-42)&quot; in TIME magazine (2 August 1943) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,777927-4,00.html <br class="br">1930s <br class="br">Variant: I shall make my own life a masterpiece.

“I have no love for the Jews, but they have great influence everywhere. It is better to leave them alone. Hitler's antisemitism has already brought him more enemies than is necessary.”

Benito Mussolini

Mussolini in conversation with the Austrian ambassador to Italy in 1932 over the then-predicted rise of Adolf Hitler to power in Germany. As quoted in Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews, Albert S. Lindemann, Cambridge University Press (1997), p. 466
1930s

“As long as 1911, when I was still a member of the Socialist Party, I wrote that the Gordian knot of Trent could be cut only by the sword. At the same date I declared that war is usually the prelude to revolution. It was therefore easy for me, when the Great War broke out, to predict the Russian and the German revolutions.”

Benito Mussolini

As quoted in Talks with Mussolini, Emil Ludwig, Boston, MA, Little, Brown and Company (1933), p. 84, Interview took place between March 23 and April 4, 1932
1930s

“For my part I prefer fifty thousand rifles to five million votes.”

Benito Mussolini

Christopher Hibbert, as quoted in Benito Mussolini: The Rise and Fall of Il Duce (1965) p. 40
Undated

“The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide; he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, life which should be high and full, lived for oneself, but above all for others — those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after.”

Benito Mussolini book The Doctrine of Fascism

"The Doctrine of Fascism" (1932)
1930s

“I know the Communists. I know them because some of them are my children…”

Benito Mussolini

Speech quoted in Three Faces of Fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism by Ernst Nolte, Henry Holt & Company, Inc. (1966) p. 154. Speech given on June 21, 1921 in Italy’s Chamber of Deputies.
1920s
Original: Conosco i comunisti. Li conosco perchè parte di loro sono i miei figli... intendiamoci... spirituali.

“In the whole negative part, we are alike. We and the Russians are against liberals, against democrats, against parliament.”

Benito Mussolini

As quoted in Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime, Richard Pipes, New York: NY, Vintage Books, 1995, p. 252, and in Yvon de Begnac, Palazzo Venezia: Storia di un Regime, Rome, 1950, p. 361.
Undated

“I don't like the look of him.”

Benito Mussolini

To his aide after Mussolini's first encounter with Hitler (1934), as quoted in The Gathering Storm (1946) by Winston Churchill
1930s

“Marx was the greatest of all theorists of socialism.”

Benito Mussolini

As quoted in Mussolini: A Biography by Denis Mack Smith (1983) p. 7. Original source: Opera Omnia di Benito Mussolini (OO) 1/102-3 (14 Mar. 1908), 135, 142.
1900s

“If the 19th [century] was the century of the individual (liberalism means individualism), you may consider that this is the "collective" century, and therefore the century of the state.”

Benito Mussolini book The Doctrine of Fascism

"The Doctrine of Fascism" (1932)
1930s

“Religion is a species of mental disease. It has always had a pathological reaction on mankind.”

Benito Mussolini

As quoted by Mussolini in 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt by James A. Haught (1966) p. 256. From a speech he made in Lausanne, July 1904.
1900s

“National pride has no need of the delirium of race. Anti-Semitism does not exist in Italy… Whenever things go awry in Germany, the Jews are blamed for it.”

Benito Mussolini

As quoted in Talks with Mussolini, Emil Ludwig, Boston, MA, Little, Brown and Company (1933) pp. 70-71. Mussolini’s interview was in 1932.
1930s

“Socialism has to remain a terrifying and a majestic thing. If we follow this line, we shall be able to face our enemies.”

Benito Mussolini

As quoted in Il Duce: The Life and Work of Benito Mussolini, L. Kemechey, New York: NY, Richard R. Smith (1930) p. 54. Written just before taking editorship of the Italian Socialist Party newspaper Avanti in 1912.
1910s

“It is blood which moves the wheels of history.”

Benito Mussolini

Speech in Parma (13 December 1914) quoted in Foreign Affairs, May 1924, p 234 https://books.google.com/books?id=DsRYAAAAMAAJ&amp;pg=RA1-PA234&amp;lpg=RA1-PA234&amp;dq=%22It+is+blood+which+moves+the+wheels+of+history!%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=v0BzInFnc_&amp;sig=gEqKCdgCipviuomrOppXZrk6E_E&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjgtZuZvY_ZAhXJmeAKHWwWB_EQ6AEIUTAG#v=onepage&amp;q=%22It%20is%20blood%20which%20moves%20the%20wheels%20of%20history!%22&amp;f=false <br class="br">1910s

“We go to battle against the plutocratic and reactionary democracies of the west… This gigantic struggle is nothing other than a phase in the logical development of our revolution; it is the struggle of peoples that are poor but rich in workers against the exploiters who hold on ferociously to the monopoly off all the riches and all the gold of the earth…”

Benito Mussolini

“Declaration of War on France and England,” Mussolini Speech on June 10, 1940
1940s

“To-morrow, Fascists and communists, both persecuted by the police, may arrive at an agreement, sinking their differences until the time comes to share the spoils. I realise that though there are no political affinities between us, there are plenty of intellectual affinities. Like them, we believe in the necessity for a centralised and unitary state, imposing an iron discipline on everyone, but with the difference that they reach this conclusion through the idea of class, we through the idea of the nation.”

Benito Mussolini

As quoted in The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution, Jacob Talmon, University of California Press (1981) p. 494, Mussolini's declaration near the end of 1921
1920s

Similar authors

Fidel Castro photo
Fidel Castro77
former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President… None
Vladimir Putin photo
Vladimir Putin110
President of Russia, former Prime Minister None
Bertil Ohlin photo
Bertil Ohlin11
Swedish economist and politician None
Franklin D. Roosevelt photo
Franklin D. Roosevelt190
32nd President of the United States None
Indíra Gándhí photo
Indíra Gándhí35
Indian politician and Prime Minister None
Winston S. Churchill photo
Winston S. Churchill601
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom None
Václav Klaus photo
Václav Klaus3
2nd President of the Czech Republic None
Jair Bolsonaro photo
Jair Bolsonaro118
Brazilian president elect None
Jawaharlal Nehru photo
Jawaharlal Nehru110
Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister … None
Francisco Franco photo
Francisco Franco14
Spanish general and dictator None