Ignazio Silone Quotes

The State always stands for swindling, intrigue, and privilege, and cannot stand for anything else.

A wrong war brings wrong; so does a right war.

Liberty isn't a thing you are given as a present. You can be a free man under a dictatorship. It is sufficient if you struggle against it.

Destiny is the invention of the cowardly, and the resigned.

No one can ever write about anything that happened to him after he was twelve years old.

The final conflict will be between the Communists and the ex-Communists.

To grow up requires a whole life but to become old one night is enough.

Sometimes I'm haunted by the thought that we have only one life and that we live it provisionally, waiting in vain for the day when real life will begin. And so life passes by.

Liberty is the possibility of doubting, the possibility of making a mistake, the possibility of searching and experimenting, the possibility of saying No to any authority - literary, artistic, philosophic, religious, social and even political.

An earthquake achieves what the law promises but does not in practice maintain - the equality of all men.