Great Throughts Treasury

"It's better to live one day as a lion, than a hundred as a sheep."

"It's good to trust others but, not to do so is much better."

"Keep your heart a desert."

"Lenin is an artist who has worked men, as other artists have worked marble or metals. But men are harder than stone and less malleable than iron. There is no masterpiece. The artist has failed. The task was superior to his capacities."

"Let me say now that what is occurring in the United States is one of the most colossal mystifications in all history. Illusion and lying are the basis of American interventionism-illusion that the United States is still a democracy, when instead it is a political and financial oligarchy dominated by Jews, through a personal form of dictatorship. The lie is that the Axis powers, after they finish Great Britain, want to attack America."

"Let us have a dagger between our teeth, a bomb in our hands and an infinite scorn in our hearts."

"Liberty is a duty, not a right."

"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."

"Modern woman cannot get away from love. She is no new woman."

"My labor had not been easy nor light; our Masonry had spun a most intricate net of anti-religious activity; it dominated the currents of thought; it exercised its influence over publishing houses, over teaching, over the administration of justice and even over certain dominant sections of the armed forces. To give an idea of how far things had gone, this significant example is sufficient. When, in parliament, I delivered my first speech of November 16, 1922, after the Fascist revolution, I concluded by invoking the assistance of God in my difficult task. Well, this sentence of mine seemed to be out of place! In the Italian parliament, a field of action for Italian Masonry, the name of God had been banned for a long time. Not even the Popular party ? the so-called Catholic party ? had ever thought of speaking of God. In Italy, a political man did not even turn his thoughts to the Divinity. And, even if he had ever thought of doing so, political opportunism and cowardice would have deterred him, particularly in a legislative assembly. It remained for me to make this bold innovation! And in an intense period of revolution! What is the truth! It is that a faith openly professed is a sign of strength. I have seen the religious spirit bloom again; churches once more are crowded, the ministers of God are themselves invested with new respect. Fascism has done and is doing its duty."

"Our future lies to the east and south, in Asia and Africa."

"Our program is simple: we wish to govern Italy. They ask us for programs but there are already too many. It is not programs that are wanting for the salvation of Italy but men and will power."

"People are tired of liberty. They have had a surfeit of it. Liberty is no longer a chaste and austere virgin?. Today?s youth are moved by other slogans?Order, Hierarchy, Discipline."

"Race? It is a feeling, not a reality. Ninety-five per cent, at least. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today.? National pride has no need of the delirium of race."

"Silence is the only answer you should give to the fools. Where ignorance speaks, intelligence should not give advices."

"Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail."

"Speeches made to the people are essential to the arousing of enthusiasm for a war."

"State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention may take the form of control, assistance or direct management."

"State ownership! It leads only to absurd and monstrous conclusions; state ownership means state monopoly, concentrated in the hands of one party and its adherents, and that state brings only ruin and bankruptcy to all."

"Statesman only talk of fate when they have blundered"

"The best blood will at some time get into a fool or a mosquito."

"The corporate State considers that private enterprise in the sphere of production is the most effective and useful instrument in the interest of the nation. In view of the fact that private organization of production is a function of national concern, the organizer of the enterprise is responsible to the State for the direction given to production."

"The definition of fascism is the marriage of corporation and state."

"The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide; he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, life which should be high and full, lived for oneself, but not above all for others - those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after."

"The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State -- a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values -- interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people."

"The Fascist State lays claim to rule in the economic field no less than in others; it makes its action felt throughout the length and breadth of the country by means of its corporate, social, and educational institutions, and all the political, economic, and spiritual forces of the nation, organized in their respective associations, circulate within the State."

"The fate of nations is intimately bound up with their powers of reproduction. All nations and all empires first felt decadence gnawing at them when their birth rate fell off."

"The function of a citizen and a soldier are inseparable."

"The Government has been compelled to levy taxes which unavoidably hit large sections of the population. The Italian people are disciplined, silent and calm, they work and know that there is a Government which governs, and know, above all, that if this Government hits cruelly certain sections of the Italian people, it does not so out of caprice, but from the supreme necessity of national order."

"The history of saints is mainly the history of insane people."

"The Italian proletariat needs a blood bath for it force to be renewed."

"The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative."

"The League is very well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out."

"The Liberal State is a mask behind which there is no face; it is a scaffolding behind which there is no building."

"The mass, whether it be a crowd or an army, is vile."

"The measures adopted to restore public order are: First of all, the elimination of the so-called subversive elements... They were elements of disorder and subversion. On the morrow of each conflict I gave the categorical order to confiscate the largest possible number of weapons of every sort and kind. This confiscation, which continues with the utmost energy, has given satisfactory results."

"The national flag is a rag that should be placed in a dunghill."

"The Socialists ask what is our program? Our program is to smash the heads of the Socialists."

"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!"

"The Truth Apparent, apparent to everyone's eyes how 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."

"The truth is that men are tired of liberty."

"The youth of Italy shall be trained so that in this country there shall be a place for every person and every person shall be in that place. I am here today and gone tomorrow; but let no one think fascism goes with me."

"There is a violence that liberates, and a violence that enslaves; there is a violence that is moral and a violence that is immoral."

"There is no revolution that can change the nature of man."

"They are stupid, dirty, do not work hard enough and are content with their little cinema shows."

"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."

"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."

"Three cheers for the war. Three cheers for Italy's war and three cheers for war in general. Peace is hence absurd or rather a pause in war."

"To treat English prisoners well is the worst insult that can be given to Italian combatants who are prisoners. They have several times fired cowardly shots into the enclosure from outside the wire netting. English officers have many times beaten Italian officers and incredible cruelties have been perpetrated on us and even on the sick, the wounded and the mutilated. The sick and weak are thrown like freight into holds or into cattle cars. Officers of every rank and age forced to carry baggage for English soldiers, and even for the colored ones. And now I must read it all: The English are cursed, but more cursed are the Italians who treat them well."

"Today Russia has lost its most fertile lands, the richest in prime raw materials, has lost from 80,000,000 to 90,000,000 of inhabitants. Those lands permit us to view the future, from the standpoint of raw materials and from the standpoint of food, with greater confidence."