Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,808 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Antonio Gramsci
16 quotes
“To tell the truth, to arrive together at the truth, is a communist and revolutionary act.”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter from Prison (21 June 1919), translated by Hamish Henderson, .
“History teaches, but it has no pupils.”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter from Prison (21 June 1919), translated by Hamish Henderson, .
“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.”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cited in Davidson's (1977) Antonio Gramsci: Towards an Intellectual Biography. London: Merlin Press., p. 77.
“For two years I have lived outside the world: in a dream world. One by one, I let each strand tying me to the world and to my fellow men be cut. I live entirely for the mind, for the heart not at all …. I turned myself into a bear, inside and outside … other people did not exist for me. For perhaps two years, I didn’t laugh once and I didn’t cry … but I never hurt anyone but myself.”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Gramsci cited in Davidson, 1977, p. 70.
“I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter from Prison (19 December 1929); also attributed to Romain Rolland. :w:it:Pessimismo dell'intelligenza, ottimismo della volontà
“La crisi consiste appunto nel fatto che il vecchio muore e il nuovo non può nascere: in questo interregno si verificano i fenomeni morbosi piú svariati.”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My practicality consists in this: in the knowledge that if you beat your head against the wall it is your head which breaks and not the wall … that is my strength, my only strength.”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: quoting a letter to his sister, as reproduced in "Gramsci in Prison: 1926–1937: Introduction" from The Modern Prince and other Writings trans. Louis Marks (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1957; New York: International Publi…
“All men are intellectuals: but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals.”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Economy and ideology. The claim (presented as an essential postulate of historical materialism) that every fluctuation of politics and ideology can be presented and expounded as an immediate expression of the structure, must be contested in theory as primitive infantilism, and combated in practice with the authentic testimony of Marx, the author of concrete political and historical works.”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“History is at once freedom and necessity.”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Revolutionaries see history as a creation of their own spirit, as being made up of a continuous series of violent tugs at the other forces of society - both active and passive, and they prepare the maximum of favourable conditions for the definitive tug (revolution).”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is all a matter of comparing one’s own life with something worse and consoling oneself with the relativity of human fortunes. When I was eight or nine I had an experience which came clearly to mind when I read your advice. I used to know a family in a little village near mine: father, mother and sons: they were small landowners and had an inn. Very energetic people, especially the woman. I knew (I had heard) that besides the sons we knew, this woman had another son nobody had seen, who was spoken of in whispers, as if he were a great disgrace for the mother, an idiot, a monster or worse. I remember that my mother referred to this woman often as a martyr, who made great sacrifices for this son, and put up with great sorrows. One Sunday morning about ten, I was sent to this woman’s: I had to deliver some crocheting and get the money. I found her shutting the door, dressed up to go out to mass, she had a hamper under her arm. On seeing me she hesitated then decided. She told me to accompany her to a certain place, and that she would take delivery and give me the money on our return. She took me out of the village, into an orchard filled with rubbish and plaster; in one corner there was a sort of pig sty, about four feet high, and windowless, with only a strong door. She opened the door and I could hear an animal-like howling. Inside was her son, a robust boy of 18, who couldn’t stand up and hence scraped along on his seat to the door, as far as he was permitted to move by a chain linked to his waist and attached to the ring in the wall. He was covered with filth, and his eyes shone red, like those of a nocturnal animal. His mother dumped the contents of her basket – a mixed mess of household leftovers – into a stone trough. She filled another trough with water, and we left. I said nothing to my mother about what I had seen, so great an impression it had made on me, and so convinced was I that nobody would believe me. Nor when I later heard of the misery which had befallen that poor mother, did I interrupt to talk of the misery of the poor human wreck who had such a mother.”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Gramsci, 1965, p. 737 cited in Davidson, 1977, p. 35.
“When I was a child the boys of the town never came near me except to make fun of me. I was almost always alone. Sometimes, finding me by chance among them, they hurled themselves against me, and not only with words. One day – and while he told me this his great eyes shone with an inner light - … they started to throw stones at me with more violence than usual, with the evilness which is found among children and the weak. I lost patience, and grabbing stones I too started to defend myself with such energy that my attackers were put to flight. Mario, I succeeded in beating them: I terrified them to such an extent that from that day they respected me and no longer annoyed me. I ran to my mother … and told her of my first victorious battle: she kissed me tenderly and it was the best prize that I could have wanted.”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Gramsci cited in Garuglieri's Garuglieri, 'Ricordo di Gramsci.' Societa, 691-701., 1946, p. 700.
“I can’t think why Delio [son] has not been told that I’m in prison, and why no one reflected that he might then find out about it indirectly, that is, in the most disagreeable way for a child, who then begins to doubt the truthfulness of those educating him, to think about it on his own account and draw apart. At least, that was my experience as a child: I remember it perfectly . . . I believe in treating children as rational creatures with whom it is possible to discuss even the most serious matters. This makes a very profound impression on them, it strengthens their character and above all it avoids leaving their development at the mercy of random environmental pressures and casual, impersonal encounters. It really is very strange how grown-ups forget they were children themselves, and make no use of their own experiences. For my part, I recall vividly how offended I was at every discovery of a subterfuge, even if it was meant to keep painful facts from me, and how this shut me up within myself and made me withdraw.”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Gramsci cited in Fiori, 1970, pp. 22-23.
“We can see that in putting the question "what is man?" what we mean is: what can man become? That is, can man dominate his own destiny, can he "make himself," can he create his own life? We maintain therefore that man is a process and, more exactly, the process of his actions. If you think about it, the question itself "what is man?" is not an abstract or "objective" question. It is born of our reflection about ourselves and about others, and we want to know, in relation to what we have thought and seen, what we are and what we can become; whether we really are, and if so to what extent, "makers of our own selves," of our life and of our destiny. And we want to know this "today," in the given conditions of today, the conditions of our daily life, not of any life or any man”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every social stratum has its own "common sense" which is ultimately the most widespread conception of life and morals. Every philosophical current leaves a sedimentation of "common sense": this is the document of its historical reality. Common sense is not something rigid and static; rather, it changes continuously, enriched by scientific notions and philosophical opinions which have entered common usage. "Common sense" is the folklore of philosophy and stands midway between "folklore" proper (that is, as it is understood) and the philosophy, the science, the economics of the scholars. "Common sense" creates the folklore of the future, that is a more or less rigidified phase of popular knowledge a certain time and place.”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) said by 1937 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source