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Benito Mussolini
162 quotes
“I have no love for the Jews, but they have great influence everywhere. It is better to leave them alone. Hitler's antisemitism has already brought him more enemies than is necessary.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mussolini in conversation with the Austrian ambassador to Italy in 1932 over the then-predicted rise of Adolf Hitler to power in Germany. As quoted in Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews, Albert …
“Inside every anarchist is a failed dictator.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from The Golden Book Magazine Vol. 16 (1932), p. 206 translated from what Mussolini said to Emil Ludwig (Colloqui con Mussolini, 1932)
“The appeal to the decisiveness and masculine sobriety of the nation’s youth, with which Roosevelt here calls his readers to battle, is reminiscent of the ways and means by which Fascism awakened the Italian people.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mussolini’s book review in Popolo d’Italia (July 7, 1933) Cited from Marco Sedda, “Il New Deal nella pubblicisticà politica italiana dal 1933 al 1938,” Il politico, vol. 64 (1999), p. 250
“The question is often asked in America and in Europe just how much ‘Fascism’ the American President’s program contains. Reminiscent of Fascism is the principle that the state no longer leaves the economy to its own devices, having recognized that the welfare of the economy is identical with the welfare of the people. Without question, the mood accompanying this sea change resembles that of Fascism. More than that cannot be said at the moment.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mussolini’s book review in Popolo d’Italia (July 7, 1933) Cited from Marco Sedda, “Il New Deal nella pubblicisticà politica italiana dal 1933 al 1938,” Il politico, vol. 64 (1999), p. 250
“Comrade Tassinari was right in stating that for a revolution to be great, for it to make a deep impression on the life of the people and on history, it must be a social revolution.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the National Corporative Council (November 14, 1933), in A Primer of Italian Fascism, edited/translated by Jeffrey T. Schnapp (2000) p. 163.
“To-day we can affirm that the capitalistic method of production is out of date. So is the doctrine of laissez-faire, the theoretical basis of capitalism... To-day we are taking a new and decisive step in the path of revolution. A revolution, in order to be great, must be a social revolution.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on November 14, 1933 as quoted in Under the Axe of Fascism, Gaetano Salvemini, London, UK, Victor Gollancz Ltd. (1936) p. 131
“Italy is not a capitalist country according to the meaning now conventionally assigned to that term.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to the National Corporative Council (November 14, 1933), in A Primer of Italian Fascism, edited/translated by Jeffrey T. Schnapp (2000) p 160
“At a given moment the worker, the tiller of the soil, must be able to say to himself and to his family: "If I am really better off today it is due to the institutions that the Fascist Revolution has created.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the National Corporative Council (14 November 1933), quoted in Carl T. Schmidt, The Plough and the Sword: Labor, Land, and Property in Fascist Italy (1938), p. 105
“Three-fourths of the Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state. And if I dare to introduce to Italy state capitalism or state socialism, which is the reverse side of the medal, I will have the necessary subjective and objective conditions to do it.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economy Since Unification, by Gianni Toniolo, editor, Oxford University Press (2013) p. 59. Mussolini’s speech to the Chamber of Deputies on May 26, 1934
“I don't like the look of him.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To his aide after Mussolini's first encounter with Hitler (1934), as quoted in The Gathering Storm (1946) by Winston Churchill
“The Truth Apparent, apparent to everyone's eyes who are not blinded by dogmatism, is that men are perhaps weary of liberty. They have a surfeit of it. Liberty is no longer the virgin, chaste and severe, to be fought for ... we have buried the putrid corpse of liberty ... the Italian people are a race of sheep.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Written statement (1934), quoted in Fascism and Democracy in the Human Mind : A Bridge Between Mind and Society (2006) by Israel W. Charny, p. 23
“The order of the day is this: Within a few decades all peasants and farm workers must possess large, healthful houses, in which the rural generations can live through the centuries, in which the race will find a secure foundation. Only thus is it possible to combat the poisons of urbanism, only thus is it possible to bring back to the villages and fields the deluded peasants who have followed the urban mirage of money wages and easy diversions.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Istituto Centrale di Statistica del Regno D'Italia, Indagine sulle case rurali in Italia (1934), p. 7, quoted in Carl T. Schmidt, The Plough and the Sword: Labor, Land, and Property in Fascist Italy (1938), p. 168
“Thirty centuries of history allow us to look with supreme pity on certain doctrines which are preached beyond the Alps by the descendants of those who were illiterate when Rome had Caesar, Virgil and Augustus.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the 5th Levantine Fair (6 September 1934) in reference to German Nordicism; quoted in Hitler's Ten-year War on the Jews (1946) by the Institute of Jewish Affairs
“I am not a collector of deserts!”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remark to Pierre Laval (Jan. 5, 1935) on a proposed Ethiopian border, quoted in Duce!: A Biography of Benito Mussolini (1971) by Richard Collier, p. 125
“It is no longer economy aiming at individual profit, but economy concerned with collective interest.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mussolini, Four Speeches on the Corporate State, Laboremus, Roma, 1935, p. 38
“Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State; and it is for the individual in so far as he coincides with the State . . . . It is opposed to classical Liberalism . . . . Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular individual; Fascism reaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Doctrine of Fascism" Firenze: Vallecchi Editore (1935 version), p. 13
“Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Doctrine of Fascism” (1935 version), Firenze: Vallecchi Editore, p. 15
“Silence is the only answer you should give to the fools. Where ignorance speaks, intelligence should not give advices.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Lazio Speeches (1936), as quoted in The Book of Italian Wisdom by Antonio Santi, Citadel Press, (2003) p. 87.
“We do not argue with those who disagree with us, we destroy them.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Lazio Speeches (1936), as quoted in The Book of Italian Wisdom by Antonio Santi, Citadel Press, 2003. p. 88.
“I declare that henceforth capital and labor shall have equal rights and duties as brothers in the fascist family.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Fate of Trade Unions Under Fascism, by Gaetano Salvemini, Chap. 3: “Italian Trade Unions under Fascism”, New York, NY, published by the Anti-Fascist Literature Committee, (1937), p. 35, Mussolini’s stat…
“This is the epitaph I want on my tomb: "Here lies one of the most intelligent animals who ever appeared on the face of the Earth.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remark to Galeazzo Ciano (December 19, 1937) quoted in The Book of Italian Wisdom (2003) by Antonio Santi, p. 50
“World Jewry has been, for sixteen years, despite our policy, an irreconcilable enemy of Fascism. In Italy our policy has led, in the Semitic elements, to what can today be called a true rush to board the ship.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech held in Trieste (September 18, 1938)
“These men are not made of the same stuff as the Francis Drakes and the other magnificent adventurers who created the empire. These, after all, are the tired sons of a long line of rich men, and they will lose their empire.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to Count Ciano (11 January 1939) after meeting Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, quoted in Malcolm Muggeridge (ed.), Ciano's Diary, 1939–1943 (1947), pp. 9–10
“The shout of your legitimate exultation merges with the shout rising from all the cities of Spain now wholly free from the Reds’ infamy, and with the shout of the anti-Bolsheviks from all over the world. The bright victory of Barcelona is another chapter in the history of the new Europe we are creating. Franco’s magnificent troops and our intrepid legionnaires did not defeat only Negrín’s government. Many others among our enemies are biting the dust right now. The Reds’ watchword was ‘No pasarán’, but we passed and, I am telling you, we will pass.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: January 26, 1939
“War is to man what motherhood is to a woman. From a philosophical and doctrinal viewpoint, I do not believe in perpetual peace.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Chamber of Deputies (28 April 1939), quoted in The Military Quotation Book (2002) by James Charlton, p. 2
“It is humiliating to remain with our hands folded while others write history. It matters little who wins. To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the pants. That is what I shall do.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remark to Galeazzo Ciano (11 April 1940), quoted in Famous Lines : A Columbia Dictionary of Familiar Quotations (1997) by Robert Andrews. p. 330
“The watchword is only one, categorical and challenging for everyone. It already flies across and lights the hearts from the Alps to the Indian Ocean: Winning! And we will win, in order to finally give a long period of peace with justice to Italy, to Europe, to the world. **From the declaration of war's announce, 10 June 1940”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We go to battle against the plutocratic and reactionary democracies of the west... This gigantic struggle is nothing other than a phase in the logical development of our revolution; it is the struggle of peoples that are poor but rich in workers against the exploiters who hold on ferociously to the monopoly off all the riches and all the gold of the earth...”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Declaration of War on France and England,” Mussolini Speech on June 10, 1940
“When the war is over, in the world's social revolution that will be followed by a more equitable distribution of the earth's riches, due account must be kept of the sacrifices and of the discipline maintained by the Italian workers. The Fascist revolution will make another decisive step to shorten social distances.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mussolini’s speech in Rome, Italy, February 23, 1941. Published in the New York Times, February 24, 1941.
“War is the normal state of the people.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Duce (1922-42)" in Time magazine (August 2, 1943)
“Better to live a day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Attributed in "Duce (1922-42)" in Time magazine (2 August 1943)
“Some still ask of us: what do you want? We answer with three words that summon up our entire program. Here they are...Italy, Republic, Socialization. . .Socialization is no other than the implantation of Italian Socialism...”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech given by Mussolini to a group of Milanese Fascist veterans (October 14, 1944), quoted in Revolutionary Fascism, Erik Norling, Lisbon, Finis Mundi Press (2011) pp. 119–120.
“We are fighting to impose a higher social justice. The others are fighting to maintain the privileges of caste and class. We are proletarian nations that rise up against the plutocrats.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in “Soliloquy for ‘freedom’ Trimellone island”, on the Italian Island of Trimelone, journalist Ivanoe Fossani, one of the last interviews of Mussolini, March 20, 1945, from Opera omnia, vol. 32. Interview is a…
“For this I have been and am a socialist. The accusation of inconsistency has no foundation. My conduct has always been straight in the sense of looking at the substance of things and not to the form. I adapted socialisticamente to reality. As the evolution of society belied many of the prophecies of Marx, the true socialism folded from possible to probable. The only feasible socialism socialisticamente is corporatism, confluence, balance and justice interests compared to the collective interest.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in “Soliloquy for ‘freedom’ Trimellone island”, on the Italian Island of Trimelone, journalist Ivanoe Fossani, one of the last interviews of Mussolini, March 20, 1945, from Opera omnia, vol. 32. Interview is a…
“Shoot me in the chest.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mussolini's last words (28 April 1945), as quoted in "Mussolini" by Peter Neville,(2004) p. 195
“You want to know what fascism is like? It is like your New Deal!”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted by Mussolini in Mr. New York: The Autobiography of Grover A. Whalen by Grover Aloysius Whalen, G.P. Putnam’s Sons (1955) p. 188. Mussolini explained Fascism to Whalen in 1939.
“I owe most to Georges Sorel. This master of syndicalism by his rough theories of revolutionary tactics has contributed most to form the discipline, energy and power of the fascist cohorts.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As Quoted in The New Inquisitions: Heretic-Hunting and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Totalitarianism, Arthur Versluis, Oxford University Press (2006) p. 39.
“[Marx was] the magnificent philosopher of working class violence.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted by Mussolini in From George Sorel: Essays in Socialism and Philosophy by John L. Stanley (1987) p. 4.
“In the whole negative part, we are alike. We and the Russians are against liberals, against democrats, against parliament.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime, Richard Pipes, New York: NY, Vintage Books, 1995, p. 252, and in Yvon de Begnac, Palazzo Venezia: Storia di un Regime, Rome, 1950, p. 361.
“The socialist revolution was a pure and simple question of ‘force.’... Between the [bourgeoisie and the proletariat] no accord is possible. One must disappear. The weaker will be ‘eliminated.’ The class struggle is therefore a question of ‘force.’”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Ideology of Fascism: The Rationale of Totalitarianism, A. James Gregor, New York and London, The Free Press (1969) p. 106
“The outbreak of a socialist revolution in one country will cause the others to imitate it or so to strengthen the proletariat as to prevent its national bourgeoisie from attempting any armed intervention.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution: The Origins of Ideological Polarization in the 20th Century, Jacob Talmon, University of California Press (1981) p. 487
“With the unleashing of a mighty clash of peoples, the bourgeoisie is playing its last card and calls forth on the world scene that which Karl Marx called the sixth great power: the socialist revolution.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Three Faces of Fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism, Ernst Nolte, New York: NY, Holt, Rinehart and Winston (1966) p. 156. Opera Omnia di Benito Mussolini, V, p. 121
“Men do not move mountains; it is only necessary to create the illusion that mountains move.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1900 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Great Illusion, 1900-1914, Oron J. Hale, Harper & Row (1971) p. 109
“The Socialists ask what is our program? Our program is to smash the heads of the Socialists.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Article in Popolo d'Italia, quoted in "A History of Terrorism" (2001) by Walter Laqueur, p. 71
“Believe, obey, fight.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mussolini and Fascism (2003) by Patricia Knight, p. 46
“The struggle between the two worlds [Fascism and Democracy] can permit no compromises. The new cycle which begins with the ninth year of the Fascist regime places the alternative in even greater relief — either we or they, either their ideas or ours, either our State or theirs!”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Fundamentals of critical argumentation" (2005) by Douglas Walton, p. 243
“Fortunately the Italian people has not yet accustomed itself to eat many times a day, and possessing a modest level of living, it feels deficiency and suffering less.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Carol F. Helstosky, Garlic and Oil: Food and Politics in Italy (2006)
“I am making superhuman efforts to educate this people. When they have learnt to obey, they will believe what I tell them.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Tyrants: 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption (2006) by Clive Foss
“I bequeath the republic to the republicans and not to the monarchists, and the work of social reform to the socialist and not to the middle class.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Joshua Muravchik, as quoted in Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism, Encounter Books (2002) p. 170.
“The new society cannot get out of the involucrum of the old society, except by smashing it to pieces; two conceptions, two classes, two worlds will contend for primacy, and only force will compel the weaker to disappear. For this reason, we socialists of the first school, Marxist and catastrophic, if you wish, explain to ourselves the partial violence of to-day and the violence of to-morrow... Do not call us prophets of massacre if we present the possibility that the socialist revolution will have insurrectional episodes. It is puerile to think that such a radical displacement of interests, such a profound transformation of habits can be accomplished without violent conflicts.”
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Gaudens Megaro, Mussolini in the Making, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, (1938) p. 128