“Let the world change you and you can change the world.”
Che Guevara · The Motorcycle Diaries
This quote argues that every human being carries an inner sense of truth, regardless of their social position, reputation, or the difficulties they face. The key insight is not that truth is easy to find, but that it is always there, waiting beneath the surface of even the most tangled life. The real work, Guevara suggests, is the deliberate effort to uncover that truth and then to act on it.
Guevara expressed ideas like this throughout his writings and speeches, drawing on his experiences traveling across Latin America and later fighting in revolutionary struggles. He was deeply interested in the inner life of ordinary people, particularly those who had been marginalized or dismissed by society. This reflection fits within a broader pattern in his thought, where he linked personal integrity and self-knowledge to the possibility of genuine social change. For Guevara, a person who had found their own truth could not so easily be manipulated or broken.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara was an Argentine-born physician, writer, and revolutionary who became one of the most recognized political figures of the twentieth century. He played a central role in the Cuban Revolution alongside Fidel Castro and later attempted to spread revolutionary movements to other parts of Latin America and Africa. He was also a prolific writer whose diaries and essays continue to be read widely around the world.
“Let the world change you and you can change the world.”
Che Guevara · The Motorcycle Diaries
“If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.”
Che Guevara
“We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.”
Che Guevara
“I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves.”
Che Guevara
“The true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.”
Che Guevara · Message to the Tricontinental, 1967
“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”
Epictetus · Fragments
“Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.”
Seneca · Letters to Lucilius
“Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, Book IX
“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations, Book VII
“How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?”
Epictetus · Discourses, Book I
“No man is free who is not master of himself.”
Epictetus · Fragments
“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”
Epictetus · Discourses, Book III