Quotes from Che Guevara

Be realistic, demand the impossible!

The first duty of a revolutionary is to be educated.

Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world.

The walls of the educational system must come down. Education should not be a privilege, so the children of those who have money can study.

The revolution is not an apple that falls when ripe. You have to make it fall.

A country that does not know how to read and write is easy to deceive.

I could become very rich in Guatemala but by the low method of ratifying my title, opening a clinic, and specialising in allergies. To do that would be the most horrible betrayal of the two 'I's' struggling inside me: the socialist and the traveller.

And then many things became very clear... we learned perfectly that the life of a single human being is worth millions of times more than all the property of the richest man on earth.

I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.

To execute a man we don't need proof of his guilt. We only need proof that it's necessary to execute him. It's that simple.

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

There is no other definition of socialism valid for us than that of the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.

Man truly achieves his full human condition when he produces without being compelled by the physical necessity of selling himself as a commodity.

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

Silence is argument carried on by other means.

I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.

Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this, our battle cry, may have reached some receptive ears, and another hand may be extended to wield our weapon, and other men may be ready to intone the funeral dirge with the staccato singing of the machine-guns and new battle cries of war and victory.

Whenever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear and another hand reaches out to take up our arms.

The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.

Let me say, with the risk of appearing ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by strong feelings of love. It is impossible to think of an authentic revolutionary without this quality.

Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel.

Many will call me an adventurer - and that I am, only one of a different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes.

Let the world change you and you can change the world. (Deje el mundo cambiarle y usted puede cambiar el mundo.)

One has to grow hard but without ever losing tenderness.