Quotes from Antonio Gramsci

Common sense is a chaotic aggregate of disparate conceptions, and one can find there anything that one like.

Il vecchio mondo sta morendo. Quello nuovo tarda a comparire. E in questo chiaroscuro nascono i mostri.

Is it better to work out consciously and critically one's own conception of the world and thus, in connection with the labours of one's own brain, choose one's sphere of activity, take an active part in the creation of the history of the world, be one's own guide, refusing to accept passively and supinely from outside the moulding of one' own personality?

History teaches, but has no pupils.

The popular element "feels" but does not always know or understand; the intellectual element "knows" but does not always understand and in particular does not always feel.

Verus Quid Factum

The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned.

The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters

The starting-point of critical elaboration is the consciousness of what one really is, and is 'knowing thyself' as a product of the historical processes to date, which has deposited in you an infinity of traces, without leaving an inventory.

Since defeat in the Struggle must always be envisaged, the preparation of one's own successors is as important as what one does for victory.

Freedom is not utopia, because it is a basic aspiration; the whole history of mankind consists of struggles and efforts to creates social institutions capable of ensuring a maximum of freedom.

The discipline imposed on citizens by the bourgeois state makes them into subjects, people who delude themselves that they exert an influence on the course of events.

Le vieux monde se meurt, le nouveau tarde à apparaître et dans ce clair-obscur surgissent les monstres .

It should never be forgotten that, in the struggle between the nations, it is in the interest of each one of them that the other should be weakened by internal struggle. Hence it is always possible to pose the question of whether the parties exist by virtue of their own strength, as their own necessity, or whether rather they only exist to serve the interests of others.

The brain is not nourished on beans and truffles but rather the food manages to reconstitute the molecules of the brain once it has been turned into homogeneous and assimilable substances, which potentially have the same nature, as the molecules of the brain

Man can affect his own development and that of his surroundings only so far as he has a clear view of what the possibilities of action are open to him. To do this he has to understand the historical situation in which he finds himself: and once he does this, then he can play an active part in modifying that situation. The man of action is the true philosopher: and the philosopher must of necessity be a man of action.

Culture is a privilege. Education is a privilege. And we do not want it to be so. All young people should be equal before culture.

It is in their interests to have a stable, skilled labour force, a permanently well-adjusted complex, because the human complex (the collective worker) of an enterprise is also a machine which cannot, without considerable loss, be taken to pieces too often and renewed with single new parts.

Odio gli indifferenti. Credo che vivere voglia dire essere partigiani. Chi vive veramente non può non essere cittadino e partigiano. L'indifferenza è abulia, è parassitismo, è vigliaccheria, non è vita. Perciò odio gli indifferenti.

At the limit it could be said that every speaking being has a personal language of his own, that is his own particular way of thinking and feeling. Culture, at its various levels, unifies in a series of strata, to the extent that they come into contact with each other, a greater or lesser number of individuals who understand each other's mode of expression to varying degrees, etc.

Ciò che avviene, non avviene tanto perché alcuni vogliono che avvenga, quanto perché la massa degli uomini abdica alla sua volontà, lascia fare, lascia aggruppare i nodi che poi solo la spada potrà tagliare, lascia promulgare le leggi che poi solo la rivolta farà abrogare, lascia salire al potere gli uomini che poi solo un ammutinamento potrà rovesciare

Tutti i più ridicoli fantasticatori che nei loro nascondigli di geni incompresi fanno scoperte strabilianti e definitive, si precipitano su ogni movimento nuovo persuasi di poter spacciare le loro fanfaluche. D'altronde ogni collasso porta con sé disordine intellettuale e morale. Bisogna creare uomini sobri, pazienti, che non disperino dinanzi ai peggiori orrori e non si esaltino a ogni sciocchezza. Pessimismo dell'intelligenza, ottimismo della volontà.

but we know. and have always said, that the bourgeoisie is attached to fascism. The bourgeois and fascism stand in the same relation to each other as do the workers and peasants to the Russian Communist Party.

Pessimismo dell'intelligenza, ottimismo della volontà.