Quotes from Antonio Gramsci

The history of education shows that every class which has sought to take power has prepared itself for power by an autonomous education. The first step in emancipating oneself from political and social slavery is that of freeing the mind. I put forward this new idea: popular schooling should be placed under the control of the great workers' unions. The problem of education is the most important class problem.

The starting-point of critical elaboration is the consciousness of what one really is, and is "knowing thyself" as a product of the historical process to date which has deposited in you an infinity of traces, without leaving an inventory. The first thing to do is to make such an inventory.

Possibility means freedom. The measure of freedom enters into the concept of man. That the objective possibilities exist for people not to die of hunder and that people do die of hunger, has its importance, or so one would have thought. But the existence of the objective conditions, of possibilities or of freedom is not yet enough: it is necessary to know them, and know how to use them.

A man of politics writes about philosophy: it could be that his true philosophy should be looked for rather in his writings on politics. In every personality there is one dominant and predominant activity: it is here that his thought must be looked for, in a form that is more often than not implicit and at times even in contradiction with what is professly expressed.

Culture is something quite different. It is organization, discipline of one's inner self, a coming to terms with one's own personality; it is the attainment of a higher awareness, with the aid of which one succeeds in understanding one's own historical value, one's own function in life, one's own rights and obligations.

Common sense is not a single unique conception, identical in time and space. It is the folklore of philosophy, and, like folklore, it takes countless different forms. Its most fundamental character is that it is a conception which, even in the brain of one individual, is fragmentary, incoherent and inconsequential.

La indiferencia es el peso muerto de la historia. La indiferencia opera potentemente en la historia. Opera pasivamente, pero opera. Es la fatalidad; aquello con que no se puede contar. Tuerce programas, y arruina los planes mejor concebidos. Es la materia bruta desbaratadora de la inteligencia.

I live, I am partisan. This is why I hate those who do not take sides; I hate those who are indifferent

O camarada Lenis nos ensinou que [...] na guerra dos exércitos, não se pode atingir o objetivo estratégico, que é a destruição do inimigo e a ocupação de seu território, sem ter antes atingido uma série de objetivos táticos, visando a desagregar o inimigo antes de enfrentá-lo em campo aberto.

Un traduttore qualificato dovrebbe essere in grado non solo di tradurre letteralmente, ma di tradurre i termini, anche concettuali, di una determinata cultura nazionale nei termini di un'altra cultura nazionale, cioè un tale traduttore dovrebbe conoscere criticamente due civiltà ed essere in grado di far conoscere l'una all'altra servendosi del linguaggio storicamente determinato di quella civiltà alla quale fornisce il materiale d'informazione.

One must speak for a struggle for a new culture, that is, for a new moral life that cannot but be intimately connected to a new intuition of life, until it becomes a new way of feeling and seeing reality.

El que quiera el fin tiene que querer también los medios.

i montanari, moralmente più puri, sono fisicamente più robusti e «triplicano» le consonanti, la gente di pianura (guai poi se sta al livello del mare come i veneziani) invece, oltre che moralmente depravata, è anche fisicamente degenerata e «scempia» le consonanti.

I think you must like history, as I liked it when I was your age, because it deals with living people and everything that concerns people, as many people as possible, all people in the world, in so far as they unite together in society and work and struggle and make a bid for a better life. All that can't fail to please you more than anything else, isn't that right?

Ma questa non è cultura, è pedanteria, non è intelligenza, ma intelletto, e contro di essa ben a ragione si reagisce. La cultura è una cosa ben diversa. È organizzazione, disciplina del proprio io interiore, è presa di possesso della propria personalità, è conquista di coscienza superiore, per la quale si riesce a comprendere il proprio valore storico, la propria funzione nella vita, i propri diritti e i propri doveri.

The indifference operates passively, but it operates.

Nemici della famiglia i socialisti, i proletari? O come si spiegherebbe la tenacia del sacrifizio del proletario che lotta per il riscatto della sua classe, se si togliesse l'amore, l'angosciosa preoccupazione per l'avvenire dei figli?

Common sense] is a spontaneous set of beliefs which together express a conception of the world which takes the social order as 'the way things are.' It is apparently the 'spontaneous feelings' that people have, the traditional popular conception of the world – what is unimaginatively called "instinct" although it too is in fact a primitive and elementary historical acquisition.

La crisi consiste appunto nel fatto che il vecchio muore e il nuovo non può nascere: in questo interregno si verificano i fenomeni morbosi più svariati.

Illusion is the most tenacious weed in the collective consciousness; history teaches, but it has no pupils.

Politics always lags behind economics, far behind. The state apparatus is far more resistant than is possible to believe; and it succeeds, at moments of crisis, in organizing greater forces loyal to the regime than the depth of the crisis might lead one to suppose. This is especially true of the more important capitalist states.

Ogni movimento rivoluzionario è romantico, per definizione.

Occorre persuadere molta gente che anche lo studio è un mestiere, e molto faticoso, con un suo speciale tirocinio ,oltre che intellettuale,anche muscolare-nervoso: è un processo di adattamento,è un ambito acquisito con lo sforzo,la noia e anche la sofferenza

Education is a struggle against instincts which are linked to elemental biological functions, a struggle against nature, in order to dominate it and create man immersed within his own time.