Quotes from Ignazio Silone

Sometimes I'm haunted by the thought that we have only one life and that we live it provisionally, waiting in vain for the day when real life will begin. And so life passes by.

Spiritual life and secure life do not go together; to save oneself on must struggle and take risks.

To grow up requires a whole life but to become old one night is enough.

The final conflict will be between the Communists and the ex-Communists.

Fascism was a counter-revolution against a revolution that never took place.

On a group of theories one can found a school; but on a group of values one can found a culture, a civilization, a new way of living together among men.

Liberty is the possibility of doubting, the possibility of making a mistake, the possibility of searching and experimenting, the possibility of saying No to any authority - literary, artistic, philosophic, religious, social and even political.

A wrong war brings wrong; so does a right war.

Destiny is the invention of the cowardly and the resigned.

Liberty isn't a thing you are given as a present. You can be a free man under a dictatorship. It is sufficient if you struggle against it.

An earthquake achieves what the law promises but does not in practice maintain — the equality of all men.

Liberty is the possibility of doubting, of making a mistake,... of searching and experimenting,... of saying No to any authority — literary, artistic, philosophical, religious, social, and even political.

On a group of theories one can found a school; but on a group of values one can found a culture, a civilization, a new way of living together among men.