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Ernesto Che Guevara Quotes
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258 Powerful Words that Ignite Passion and Challenge Perspectives

Discover the powerful words of Ernesto Che Guevara, a revolutionary icon. From inspiring calls for change to thought-provoking reflections on society, his quotes will ignite your passion and challenge your perspective. Explore his wisdom and be moved to make a difference in the world.

Ernesto "Che" Guevara was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary and military theorist, known for his involvement in the Cuban Revolution. He was radicalized by the poverty he witnessed while traveling throughout South America as a young medical student, leading him to become involved in social reforms and eventually join Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement. Guevara played a pivotal role in the two-year guerrilla campaign that overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista and after the revolution, he held various positions in the Cuban government. He became a prominent figure in training militia forces and bringing Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles to Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Despite his polarizing reputation, Guevara remains an iconic symbol of rebellion and leftist ideologies.

Born in Argentina into an upper-class family, Guevara developed an affinity for the poor from a young age, influenced by his father's support of Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. He excelled as both an athlete and scholar, participating in sports like rugby and chess, while also being passionate about poetry and literature. Guevara's education exposed him to various political perspectives and influential intellectuals such as Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. His hunger for exploration led him to embark on transformative journeys through Latin America, which deeply impacted his view of himself and the economic conditions in the region. These experiences inspired him to pursue armed struggle as a means of helping those suffering from poverty, initiating his involvement in revolutionary activities.

Overall, Ernesto "Che" Guevara was a complex figure whose experiences shaped his commitment to fighting against capitalist exploitation and championing socialist ideals.

✵ 14. June 1928 – 9. October 1967   •   Other names Эрнесто Че Гевара
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Ernesto Che Guevara: 258   quotes 78   likes

Ernesto Che Guevara Quotes

“Our enemy, and the enemy of all America, is the monopolistic government of the United States of America.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

On Revolutionary Medicine (1960)

“On various occasions emissaries of the U. S. State Department came, disguised as reporters, to investigate our rustic revolution, yet they never found any trace of imminent danger. By the time the imperialists wanted to react — when they discovered that the group of inexperienced young men marching in triumph through the streets of Havana had a clear awareness of their political duty and an iron determination to carry out that duty — it was already too late.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Cuba as Vanguard (1961)

Men , Time

“Words that do not match deeds are unimportant.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

As quoted in Seeds of Revolution: A Collection of Axioms, Passages and Proverbs, Volume 1 (2009) by Iam A. Freeman

“The enemy soldier in the Cuban example, which we are now considering, is the junior partner of the dictator; he is the man who gets the last crumbs left to him in a long line of profiteers that begins in Wall Street and ends with him. He is disposed to defend his privileges, but he is disposed to defend them only to the degree that they are important to him. His salary and pension are worth some suffering and some dangers, but they are never worth his life; if the price of maintaining them will cost it, he is better off giving them up, that is to say, withdrawing from the face of guerrilla danger.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Notes on the Cuban Revolution (1960)

Life , Suffering

“The International Monetary Fund is the watchdog of the dollar in the capitalist camp.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

On Development (1964)

“In most countries the large landholders realized they couldn't survive alone and promptly entered into alliances with the monopolies — the strongest and most ruthless oppressors of the Latin American peoples. U. S. capital arrived on the scene to exploit the virgin lands and later carried off, unnoticed, all the funds so “generously” given, plus several times the amount originally invested in the "beneficiary" country.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Cuba as Vanguard (1961)

People , Time , Country

“Our children must have, or lack, those things that the children of the ordinary citizen have or lack; our families should understand this and struggle for it to be that way.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

Children , Family , Way , Understanding

“The myth of the self-made man, has to be profoundly hypocritical: it is the self-serving demonstration that a lie is the truth.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

Truth , Lie

“The socialist countries must help pay for the development of countries now starting out on the road to liberation.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Afro-Asian Conference (1965)

Help , Country

“Once again I feel beneath my heels the ribs of Rocinante. Once more, I'm on the road with my shield on my arm.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Rocinante was the name of Don Quixotes' horse.
Last Letter to his Parents (1965)

Feeling

“Our America is integrated by a group of more or less homogeneous countries and in most parts of its territory U. S. monopolist capitals maintain an absolute supremacy. Puppet governments or, in the best of cases, weak and fearful local rulers, are incapable of contradicting orders from their Yankee master.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Message to the Tricontinental (1967)

Fear , Parting , Country

“Much more definitive and much more lasting than all the gold that one can accumulate is the gratitude of a people.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

On Revolutionary Medicine (1960)

People , Gratitude

“A more structured connection with the mass is needed, and we must improve it in the course of the coming years. But as far as initiatives originating in the upper strata of the government are concerned, we are currently utilizing the almost intuitive method of sounding out general reactions to the great problems we confront.
In this Fidel is a master. His own special way of fusing himself with the people can be appreciated only by seeing him in action. At the great public mass meetings one can observe something like the dialogue of two tuning forks whose vibrations interact, producing new sounds. Fidel and the mass begin to vibrate together in a dialogue of growing intensity until they reach the climax in an abrupt conclusion crowned by our cry of struggle and victory.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

People , Way , Problem , Victory

“And the imperialists? Will they sit with their arms crossed? No! The system they practice is the cause of the evils from which we are suffering, but they will try to obscure the facts with spurious allegations, of which they are masters.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

On Development (1964)

Suffering , Evil

“To build communism it is necessary, simultaneous with the new material foundations, to build the new man and woman.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

Communication

“We have to remind ourselves of this at every moment: that we are in a war, a cold war as they call it; a war where there is no front line, no continuous bombardment, but where the two adversaries — this tiny champion of the Caribbean and the immense imperialist hyena — are face to face and aware that one of them is going to end up dead in the fight.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Mobilising for Invasion (1961)

War , Fight , Dead

“We must agree that the socialist countries are, in a certain way, accomplices of imperialist exploitation … The socialist countries have the moral duty to put an end to their tacit complicity with the exploiting countries of the West.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Afro-Asian Conference (1965)

Way , Country

“The state sometimes makes mistakes. When one of these mistakes occurs, a decline in collective enthusiasm is reflected by a resulting quantitative decrease of the contribution of each individual, each of the elements forming the whole of the masses. Work is so paralysed that insignificant quantities are produced. It is time to make a correction.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

Time

“Our free eyes open now on new horizons and can see what yesterday, in our condition as colonial slaves, we could not observe: that “Western Civilization” disguises behind its showy facade a picture of hyenas and jackals … A carnivorous animal that feeds on unarmed peoples.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Address to the United Nations (1964)

People , Animals

“In any case the road to success is pictured as one beset with perils but which, it would seem, an individual with the proper qualities can overcome to attain the goal. The reward is seen in the distance; the way is lonely. Further on it is a route for wolves; one can succeed only at the cost of the failure of others.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

Way , Failure , Success

“Guerrilla warfare is a people's warfare; an attempt to carry out this type of war without the population's support is a prelude to inevitable disaster.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Method of Guerrilla Warfare (1963)

War , People , Support

“Moral missiles are such a devastatingly effective weapon that they have become the most important element in determining Cuba's value.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Tactics and Strategy of the Latin American Revolution (1962)

“The great multitudes continue to develop; the new ideas continue to attain their proper force within society; the material possibilities for the full development of all members of society make the task much more fruitful. The present is a time for struggle; the future is ours.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

Idea , Time , Future

“Development cannot be left to complete improvisation. It is necessary to plan the construction of the new society. Planning is one of the laws of socialism, and without it, socialism would not exist. Without correct planning there can be no adequate guarantee that all the various sectors of a country's economy will combine harmoniously to take the leaps forward that our epoch demands.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Afro-Asian Conference (1965)

Law , Country

“In this period of the building of socialism we can see the new man and woman being born. The image is not yet completely finished — it never will be, since the process goes forward hand in hand with the development of new economic forms.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

“The individual under socialism, despite apparent standardization, is more complete.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

“The change in consciousness will not take place automatically, just as it doesn't take place automatically in the economy. The alterations are slow and are not harmonious; there are periods of acceleration, pauses and even retrogressions.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

Change

“I feel that I have fulfilled the part of my duty that tied me to the Cuban revolution in its territory, and I say farewell to you, to the comrades, to your people, who now are mine.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Farewell letter to Fidel Castro (1965)

People , Feeling , Parting

“In underdeveloped America, the countryside is the basic area for armed fighting.”

Ernesto Che Guevara book Guerrilla Warfare

Guerrilla Warfare (1960)

Fight

“Cuba hopes that her children will see a better future, and that victory will not have to be won at the cost of millions of human lives destroyed by the atomic bomb.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

On Growth and Imperialism (1961)

Children , Hope , Future , Victory

“Great strategic links are being developed abroad to destroy our Revolution. Those forces are trying to attract all those who have been hurt by the Revolution. We do not refer to the embezzlers, criminals, or the members of the old government; we are thinking of those who have remained on the margin of this revolutionary process, those who have lost economically but support the Revolution in a limited way.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Speech to University students (1959)

Way , Support , Thinking , Hurt

“Our every action is a battle cry against imperialism, and a battle hymn for the people's unity against the great enemy of mankind: the United States of America.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Message to the Tricontinental (1967)

People , Cry

“The people are weary of being oppressed, persecuted, exploited to the maximum. They are weary of the wretched selling of their labor-power day after day — faced with the fear of joining the enormous mass of unemployed — so that the greatest profit can be wrung from each human body, profit later squandered in the orgies of the masters of capital.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Cuba as Vanguard (1961)

People , Fear

“The slogan "we will not allow another Cuba" hides the possibility of perpetrating aggressions without fear of reprisal, such as the one carried out against the Dominican Republic or before that the massacre in Panama — and the clear warning stating that Yankee troops are ready to intervene anywhere in America where the ruling regime may be altered, thus endangering their interests.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Message to the Tricontinental (1967)

Fear

“What is our ideology? If l were asked whether our revolution is Communist, I would define it as Marxist. Our revolution has discovered by its methods the paths that Marx pointed out.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

As quoted in Cuba: A Dissenting Report (1960) by Samuel Shapiro, New Republic

“The ultimate and most important revolutionary aspiration: to see human beings liberated from their alienation.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

“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.”

Ernesto Che Guevara book Guerrilla Warfare

Source: Guerrilla Warfare (1961), Ch. I: 1. Essence of Guerrilla Warfare

People , Change , Fight

“We believe that the state is capable of understanding the needs of the nation; as such, then, the state must participate in the administration and direction of the university.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Speech to University students (1959)

Understanding , Universe

“Capitalism uses force but it also educates the people to its system. Direct propaganda is carried out by those entrusted with explaining the inevitability of class society, either through some theory of divine origin or through a mechanical theory of natural law.
This lulls the masses since they see themselves as being oppressed by an evil against which it is impossible to struggle. Immediately following comes the hope of improvement — and in this, capitalism differed from the preceding caste systems, which offered no possibilities for advancement.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

People , Education , Law , Hope

“The difficult thing for someone not living the experience of the revolution to understand is this close dialectical unity between the individual and the mass, in which the mass, as an aggregate of individuals, is interconnected with its leaders.
Some phenomena of this kind can be seen under capitalism, when politicians capable of mobilising popular opinion appear, but these phenomena are not really genuine social movements. (If they were, it would not be entirely correct to call them capitalist.) These movements only live as long as the persons who inspire them do, or until the harshness of capitalist society puts an end to the popular illusions which made them possible.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

Understanding , Appearance , Personality

“The university cannot be an ivory tower, far away from the society, removed from the practical accomplishments of the Revolution. If such an attitude is maintained, the university will continue giving our society lawyers that we do not need.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Speech to University students (1959)

Universe

“Arms cannot be commodities in our world. They must be delivered to the peoples asking for them to use against the common enemy, with no charge and in the quantities needed and available.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Afro-Asian Conference (1965)

People , World

“Along the way, I had the opportunity to pass through the dominions of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company United Fruit], convincing me once again of just how terrible these capitalist octopuses are. I have sworn before a picture of the old and mourned comrade Stalin that I won't rest until I see these capitalist octopuses annihilated.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Letter to his aunt Beatriz describing what he had seen while traveling through Guatemala (1953); as quoted in Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (1997) by Jon Lee Anderson ISBN 0802116000

Way

“We should not go to the people and say, "Here we are. We come to give you the charity of our presence, to teach you our science, to show you your errors, your lack of culture, your ignorance of elementary things." We should go instead with an inquiring mind and a humble spirit to learn at that great source of wisdom that is the people.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

On Revolutionary Medicine (1960)

Wisdom , People , Error , Learning

“I knew that the moment the great governing spirit strikes the blow to divide all humanity into just two opposing factions, I would be on the side of the common people.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

As quoted in Becoming Che : Guevara's Second and Final Trip through Latin America (2005) by Carlos "Calica" Ferrer, as translated by Sarah L. Smith (2006), p. 170

People

“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.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Spanish: Sobre todo, sean siempre capaces de sentir en lo más hondo cualquier injusticia cometida contra cualquiera en cualquier parte del mundo. Es la cualidad más linda de un revolucionario.
Letter to his Children (1965)

Parting , Beauty , Personality , World

“Not for a long time shall we be able to know if President Johnson ever seriously thought of bringing about some of the reforms needed by his people — to iron out the barbed class contradictions that grow each day with explosive power. The truth is that the improvements announced under the pompous title of the "Great Society" have dropped into the cesspool of Vietnam.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Message to the Tricontinental (1967)

People , Truth , Time

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

Ernesto Che Guevara

On Revolutionary Medicine (1960)

Youth , World , Idea

“In the field of ideas not involving productive activities it is easier to distinguish the division between material and spiritual necessity. For a long time man has been trying to free himself from alienation through culture and art. While he dies every day during the eight or more hours that he sells his labour, he comes to life afterwards in his spiritual activities.
But this remedy bears the germs of the same sickness; it is as a solitary individual that he seeks communion with his environment.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

Life , Art , Idea , Time

“Everything we thought and felt in that past period ought to be deposited in an archive, and a new type of human being created.”

Ernesto Che Guevara

On Revolutionary Medicine (1960)

Past