Che Guevara Quotes

There comes an hour when protest no longer suffices; after philosophy there must be action; the strong hand finishes what the idea has sketched.

The absolute key issue is: how do you create enough political pressure? It's up to us to create that political will and there are tried and tested techniques for doing that. So we're talking about the need for civil disobedience that escalates into a rebellion and uprising.

I resolved that no revolutionary movement was going to be brought into being in the USA unless I brought it into being.

If democracy were to be given any meaning, if it were to go beyond the limits of capitalism and nationalism, this would not come, if history were any guide, from the top. It would come through citizen's movements, educating, organizing, agitating, striking, boycotting, demonstrating, threatening those in power with disruption of the stability they needed.

From Gandhi to Mandela, from the American patriot to the Polish shipbuilders, the makers of revolutions have not come from the top.

I think direct political action, civil disobedience, in particular, is something to be taken very seriously.

Insurrection is an art, and like all arts it has its laws

Civil disobedience has almost always been about expression. Generally, it's nonviolent, as defined by Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, and King.

Change comes when people are willing to commit acts of peaceful civil disobedience.

You can't change the world through the parliamentary system.

Agitation prevents rebellion, keeps the peace, and secures progress. Every step she gains is gained forever. Muskets are the weapons of animals. Agitation is the atmosphere of the brains.

It's really important that we get rid of the idea that protest will create change. We don't realize that that kind of organizing worked only when the government was very strong, when the West ruled the world, relatively speaking.

In a world built on violence, one must be a revolutionary before one can be a pacifist.

If the government or the parties won't address our needs, we will. It's about direct action, even civil disobedience.

It is right to rebel against reactionaries.

I witnessed a lot of violence, and I found myself asking the question: Do you ever use violence to try to bring about political change?

Civil disobedience is the core of American defiance against kings and emperors.

Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it. It is a corrective to the sluggishness of "the proper channels," a way of breaking through passages blocked by tradition and prejudice. It is disruptive and troublesome, but it is a necessary disruption, a healthy troublesome.

Once again, he who ignores the problems of revolutionary strategy would do better not to talk about revolutions at all.

You can be active with the activists or sleep in with the sleepers while you're waiting for the Great Leap Forwards.

Revolution is not a one time event.

We are in a strange period of history in which a revolutionary has to be a patriot and a patriot has to be a revolutionary.

We have the right of revolution. Revolution does not always have to be weapons and warfare; it's also about revolutionary ideas.

Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.

We talking about revolution because that's the era that you're caught in.