The Many Mussolinis

"I? I am not a statesman. I am more like a mad poet."
- Mussolini, The Mad Poet

"The Socialists ask us for our program? Our program is to smash the heads of the Socialists."
- Mussolini, The Anti-Socialist

"The mass, whether it be a crowd or an army, is vile."
- Mussolini, The Man Above Yet of the People

"If I go forward, follow me! If I go back, kill me! If I die, avenge me!"
- Mussolini, The Eternal Champion

"The bullets pass, Mussolini remains."
- Mussolini, The Self-Mythologizer

"Every anarchist is a baffled dictator."
- Mussolini, The Anarchist Fulfilled

"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."
- Mussolini, The Anti-Lenin

"Blood alone moves the wheels of history."
- Mussolini, The Blood-Driver of History

"War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it."
- Mussolini, The Warrior God

"The history of saints is mainly the history of insane people."
- Mussolini, The Fascist Saint

"I intend absolutely to stop periodic attempts against my life. I say this not on account of myself, because I truly love to live in danger, but on account of the Italian people."
- Mussolini, The People's Egoist

"War is to man what maternity is to a woman."
- Mussolini, The Alpha Male

"Ruling the Italians is not difficult; it's pointless."
- Mussolini, The Governor of the Ungovernable

"The best blood will at some time get into a fool or a mosquito."
- Mussolini, The Wit

"To live is not to calculate, it is to act."
- Mussolini, The Master Actor

"All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state."
- Mussolini, The Totalitarian

"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.'"
- Mussolini, The Intelligent Animal

"For my part I prefer fifty thousand rifles to fifty thousand votes."
- Mussolini, The Democratic Pragmatist

"I have never made mistakes when I have followed my instincts, but often when I have obeyed my reason."
- Mussolini, The Man of Instinct

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

"Women are like sardines, best kept in tins."
- Mussolini, The Ladies Man

"I am not a collector of deserts!"
- Mussolini, The Collector of Deserts

"Youth is beautiful. I love the young even when they bear arms against me."
- Mussolini, The Lover of Youth

"Youth is a malady of which one becomes cured a little every day."
- Mussolini, The Lover of Age

"Race! It is a feeling, not a reality; ninety-five per cent, at least, is a feeling. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today. Amusingly enough, not one of those who have proclaimed the nobility of the Teutonic race was himself a Teuton. . . National pride has no need of the delirium of race."
- Mussolini, The Anti-Racist

"Kindness can never be excessive."
- Mussolini, The Gentleman

"The Jews have lived in Rome since the days of Kings [and] shall remain undisturbed."
- Mussolini, The Protector of the Jews

"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."
- Mussolini, The Anti-Nazi

"Seven years ago I was an interesting person. Now I am a corpse."
- Mussolini, The Living Corpse

"Yes, madam, I am finished. My star has fallen. I work and I try, yet know that all is but a farce. . . I await the end of the tragedy and--strangely detached from everything--I do not feel anymore an actor. I feel I am the last of spectators."
- Mussolini, The Last of the Spectators

"Every one dies the death which befits his character."
- Mussolini, The Self-Prophet

"Shoot me in the chest."
- Mussolini, The Chest Wound Victim