List of Antonio Gramsci Quotes

This Is Really The Common Mentality Of Prisoners: They Read With Great Attention All The Articles That Deal With Illnesses And Send Away For Treatises And "be Your Own Doctor" Or "emergency Treatments" And End Up By Discovering That They Have At Least 300 Or 400 Illnesses, Whose Symptoms They Are Experiencing.

History Is At Once Freedom And Necessity.

The People Themselves Are Not A Homogeneous Cultural Collectivity But Present Numerous And Variously Combined Cultural Stratifications Which, In Their Pure Form, Cannot Always Be Identified Within Specific Historical Popular Collectivities.

How Many Times Have I Wondered If It Is Really Possible To Forge Links With A Mass Of People When One Has Never Had Strong Feelings For Anyone, Not Even One's Own Parents: If It Is Possible To Have A Collectivity When One Has Not Been Deeply Loved Oneself By Individual Human Creatures. Hasn't This Had Some Effect On My Life As A Militant--has It Not Tended To Make Me Sterile And Reduce My Quality As A Revolutionary By Making Everything A Matter Of Pure Intellect, Of Pure Mathematical Calculation?

The Abolition Of The Class Struggle Does Not Mean The Abolition Of The Need To Struggle As A Principle Of Development.

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.

Pessimism Of The Spirit; Optimism Of The Will.

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?

If You Think About It Seriously, All The Questions About The Soul And The Immortality Of The Soul And Paradise And Hell Are At Bottom Only A Way Of Seeing This Very Simple Fact: That Every Action Of Ours Is Passed On To Others According To Its Value, Of Good Or Evil, It Passes From Father To Son, From One Generation To The Next, In A Perpetual Movement.

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).

Before Puberty The Child's Personality Has Not Yet Formed And It Is Easier To Guide Its Life And Make It Acquire Specific Habits Of Order, Discipline, And Work.

After Puberty The Personality Develops Impetuously And All Extraneous Intervention Becomes Odious.... Now It So Happens That Parents Feel The Responsibility Towards Their Children Precisely During This Second Period, When It Is Too Late.