Quotes from book
The Doctrine of Fascism

Name: The Doctrine of Fascism
Author: Benito Mussolini

Benito MussoliniOriginal title La dottrina del fascismo (Italian, 1932)

"The Doctrine of Fascism" is an essay attributed to Benito Mussolini. In truth, the first part of the essay, entitled "Idee Fondamentali" was written by philosopher Giovanni Gentile, while only the second part is the work of Mussolini himself. It was first published in the Enciclopedia Italiana of 1932, as the first section of a lengthy entry on "Fascismo" . The entire entry on Fascism spans pages 847–884 of the Enciclopedia Italiana, and includes numerous photographs and graphic images. The Mussolini entry starts on page 847 and ends on 851 with the credit line "Benito Mussolini." All subsequent translations of "The Doctrine of Fascism" are from this work.

“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

“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

“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 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

“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

“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

“Fascism denies that numbers, as such, can direct human society. It denies that numbers can govern by means of periodical consultations: It asserts the unavoidable fruitful and beneficent inequality of men who cannot be leveled by any such mechanical and extrinsic device as universal suffrage.”

Benito Mussolini book The Doctrine of Fascism

"The Doctrine of Fascism", June 1932. Quoted in Marco Piraino, Stefano Fiorito, Fascist identity : political project and doctrine of fascism. Lulu.com, 2009. (p. 107)
1930s