Best 70 quotes in «martyr quotes» category

When we read, we fancy we could be martyrs; when we come to act, we cannot bear a provoking word.

A martyr is someone willing to die for what he believes in. A fanatic is someone willing for you to die for what he believes in.

Another site of Leftist struggle [other than Detroit] that has parallels to New Orleans: Palestine. From the central role of displacement to the ways in which culture and community serve as tools of resistance, there are illuminating comparisons to be made between these two otherwise very different places. In the New Orleans Black community, death is commemorated as a public ritual (it's often an occasion for a street party), and the deceased are often also memorialized on t-shirts featuring their photos embellished with designs that celebrate their lives. Worn by most of the deceased's friends and family, these t-shirts remind me of the martyr posters in Palestine, which also feature a photo and design to memorialize the person who has passed on. In Palestine, the poster's subjects are anyone who has been killed by the occupation, whether a sick child who died at a checkpoint or an armed fighter killed in combat. In New Orleans, anyone with family and friends can be memorialized on a t-shift. But a sad truth of life in poor communities is that too many of those celebrate on t-shirts lost their lives to violence. For both New Orleans and Palestine, outsiders often think that people have become so accustomed to death by violence that it has become trivialized by t-shirts and posters. While it's true that these traditions wouldn't manifest in these particular ways if either population had more opportunities for long lives and death from natural causes, it's also far from trivial to find ways to celebrate a life. Outsiders tend to demonize those killed--especially the young men--in both cultures as thugs, killers, or terrorists whose lives shouldn't be memorialized in this way, or at all. But the people carrying on these traditions emphasize that every person is a son or daughter of someone, and every death should be mourned, every life celebrated.

Ashlei was free to spout off how much she loved her savior because Jesus was not about to rear back and tell her He did not quite feel the same way, that He had died for the sins of the world just because it was fun and did not want things to be too serious. He was only thirty-three, after all, and might want to martyr himself for other people.

A willing heart will believe anything and die for anything

But you have to sacrifice yourself for YOURSELF, too.

By not burning their poppy fields to the ground but instead maintaining a security umbrella that international development agencies could safely work under as they improved these ordinary people's lives, we would win their 'hearts and minds' in the classic manifestation of a successful counter-insutgency operation. [...] Maybe our Western values world somebe instilled in these people. But in country where the average life expectancy was 42 and with the price of that life coming in contrasting cheap at $10 plus the bonus of martyrdom, or alien values might just as equally not be snapped up.

Daniel suffered through the flames. He lifted his arms towards the sky. He lifted his face. He closed his eyes. “Lord! Lord! I am thine!” His lips mouthed the words, until the gums melted out of his face, and the lips disappeared. And even then, though his body was a flame, his hands stayed lifted until the skin dripped down into the fire and his bones shrank to the ground.

Dreamers like your wife are limited, little Helldiver.” She makes sure I don’t speak. “Understand that. The only power they have is in death. The harder they die, the louder their voice, the deeper the echoes. But your wife served her purpose.

Every exceptional bias against Christianity I find to be evidence for its validity.

Heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives! You are now lying in the heart of every freedom lover & patriotic person. Therefore rest in peace. And Matshona, yes we will to die rather than kill for our beliefs, we will choose to be a martyr rather than being a murderer. Those martyrs who suffered persecution or death for fighting against captivity, monarchy, indifference, mockery, coldness, insolence, contempt and oppression, we respect you! And those who are overshadowed and ignored but once showed exceptional leadership and heroism, your death will be commemorated.

Adolf Hitler was a Jeanne d'Arc, a saint. He was a martyr.

A mighty fortress is our God, and in Him we are safe for time and for eternity. Shall we murmur if we have less of time than we expected? The less of time, the more of heaven. The briefer life, earlier mortality.

And the only thing worse than the silencing of a martyr, a real martyr – someone with dangerous ideas – is silencing someone who has nothing at all to say.

And those of us who are not directly caught up in any persecution for our Christian faith must pray for those who suffer such onslaughts. But even more importantly, we must pray for those who persecute us or our fellow Christians. It is what Jesus Christ calls us to do. And, as Saint Perpetua reported hearing during her last vision, "Do not be afraid, I am here with you, and I am laboring with you.

But we’re also taught that you’re not a martyr if you blow yourself up in a marketplace, because you’re killing civilians and other Muslims.

Can you die for a false idea? Yes. The reason you die is that you believe it’s not a false idea

I actually believed that after living as fully as humanly possible, one should then die violently. I expected then as I still expect today

But if you knew about this…conspiracy, why did you cooperate with it? Why did you allow Hae-Joo Im to get so close to you? Why does any martyr cooperate with his judases? Tell me. We see a game beyond the endgame… But to what end? Some future…revolution? It can never succeed. As Seneca warned Nero: No matter how many of us you kill, you will never kill your successor.

He, in truth, bears witness to himself that he is faithful and loyal towards God; and to the tempter, that he in vain envied him who is faithful through love; and to the Lord, of the inspired persuasion in reference to His doctrine, from which he will not depart through fear of death; further, he confirms also the truth of preaching by his deed, showing that God to whom he hastes is powerful. You will wonder at his love, which he conspicuously shows with thankfulness, in being united to what is allied to him, and besides by his precious blood, shaming the unbelievers. He then avoids denying Christ through fear by reason of the command; nor does he sell his faith in the hope of the gifts prepared, but in love to the Lord he will most gladly depart from this life; perhaps giving thanks both to him who afforded the cause of his departure hence, and to him who laid the plot against him, for receiving an honourable reason which he himself furnished not, for showing what he is, to him by his patience, and to the Lord in love, by which even before his birth he was manifested to the Lord, who knew the martyr's choice. With good courage, then, he goes to the Lord, his friend, for whom he voluntarily gave his body, and, as his judges hoped, his soul, hearing from our Saviour the words of poetry, "Dear brother," by reason of the similarity of his life. We call martyrdom perfection, not because the man comes to the end of his life as others, but because he has exhibited the perfect work of love.

I can wish no better thing for you, sirs, than this, that, recognizing in this way that intelligence is given to every man, you may be of the same opinion as ourselves, and believe that Jesus is the Christ of God.

If you are willing to kill for your beliefs, you are a murderer; if you are willing to die for your beliefs, you are a martyr.

Ignore what a man is willing to fight for, watch closely what he's willing to die for.

I never wanted to be a martyr—even for love. I don’t want to die for love. I want to live for it.

I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history

{On the death of Hale's esteemed friend and fellow scientist, Luther Burbank. Burbank was much beloved by the population unil in an interview he revealed that he was an atheist. After this, the public turned on him and sent him thousands of letters with death threats. This upset the kind-hearted Burbank, who tried to amiably reply to each letter, so much that it ultimately led to his death} . . . he was misled into believing that logic, kindliness, and reason could convince and help the bigoted. He fell sick. The sickness was fated to be his last. What killed Luther Burbank, at just that time and in just that abrupt and tragic fashion, was his baffled, yearning, desperate effort to make people understand. His desire to help them, to clarify their minds, and to induce them to substitute fact for hysteria drove him beyond his strength. He grew suddenly old attempting to make reasonable a people which had been unreasonable through twenty stiff-necked generations. . . He died, not a martyr to truth, but a victim of the fatuity of blasting dogged falsehood.

{The final resolutions at Robert Ingersoll's funeral, quoted here} Whereas, in the order of nature -- that nature which moves with unerring certainty in obedience to fixed laws -- Robert G. Ingersoll has gone to that repose which we call death. We, his old friends and fellow-citizens, who have shared his friendship in the past, hereby manifest the respect due his memory. At a time when everything impelled him to conceal his opinions or to withhold their expression, when the highest honors of the state were his if he would but avoid discussion of the questions that relate to futurity, he avowed his belief; he did not bow his knee to superstition nor countenance a creed which his intellect dissented. Casting aside all the things for which men most sigh -- political honor, the power to direct the futures of the state, riches and emoluments, the association of the worldly and the well- to-do -- he stood forth and expressed his honest doubts, and he welcomed the ostracism that came with it, as a crown of glory, no less than did the martyrs of old. Even this self-sacrifice has been accounted shame to him, saying that he was urged thereto by a desire for financial gain, when at the time he made his stand there was before him only the prospect of loss and the scorn of the public. We, therefore, who know what a struggle it was to cut loose from his old associations, and what it meant to him at that time, rejoice in his triumph and in the plaudits that came to him from thus boldly avowing his opinions, and we desire to record the fact that we feel that he was greater than a saint, greater than a mere hero -- he was a thoroughly honest man. He was a believer, not in the narrow creed of a past barbarous age, but a true believer in all that men ought to hold sacred, the sanctity of the home, the purity of friendship, and the honesty of the individual. He was not afraid to advocate the fact that eternal truth was eternal justice; he was not afraid of the truth, nor to avow that he owed allegiance to it first of all, and he was willing to suffer shame and condemnation for its sake. The laws of the universe were his bible; to do good, his religion, and he was true to his creed. We therefore commend his life, for he was the apostle of the fireside, the evangel of justice and love and charity and happiness. We who knew him when he first began his struggle, his old neighbors and friends, rejoice at the testimony he has left us, and we commend his life and efforts as worthy of emulation.

Some men are sent to heaven by torturers who thought they were doing god's work by sending them to hell

I know you not quite well Yet I foolishly surrender my mind to you. Slowly and carefully you have cast a spell Now my virgin heart only longs for you. There is no need to push, I am already falling. Once proudly tall, I’m no longer standing. Knowing well that I am doomed to misery, I will roll the dice and take delight in my suffering.

N"ayez pas peur du kamikaze. Ce qui l'intéresse dans le risque de mort, ce n'est pas le risque, c'est la mort. Ce qu'il aime dans la guerre, ce n'est pas "vaincre ou mourir" mais mourir et ne surtout pas vaincre. Sa grande affaire, ce n'est pas, comme dit Clausewitz, proportionner des efforts à la force de résistance de l'ennemi, le renverser, le réduire - mais mourir. (ch. 16 Debray, Kojève et le prix du sang)

One to be a murderer, the other to be martyred, One to be a monarch, the other to go mad.

Saintliness is very odd. When people encounter it, they often take it for something else, something completely unlike it: indifference, mockery, scheming, coldness, insolence, perhaps even contempt. But they're mistaken, and that makes them furious. They commit an awful crime. This is doubtless the reason why most saints end up as martyrs.

So the question becomes, If you are ever faced with this choice are you willing to die for what you believe in? For that is the only way you will deny him. [...] It's a difficult question and not one you can answer until you're faced with it. Keep in mind that many people have died for their beliefs; it's actually quite common. The real courage is in living and suffering for what you believe.

How like God's love yours has been to me- so wise, so generous, and so unsparing!" exclaimed Pancratius. "Promise me one thing more- that is, that you will stay near to me to the end, and carry my last legacy to my mother.

Neither can I call myself anything else than what I am, a Christian. (Saint Perpetua, as preserved by Tertullian in The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity.)

. . . not only our works, but also our thoughts, are open before God.

The first time I heard you laugh, I only wanted to say funny things so you would always be laughing. You know what happens to chocolate when you leave it out in the sun? I’m that unfortunate chocolate and you, you are the laughing sun. For this reason, I am offering myself to you not as a martyr or some selfless fool, but as a self-indulgent moth who actively pursues the light without much fear for the flame. The moth who revels in the heat and declares: Burn me.

There is no such thing as ‘calm and serene’ in our household,” Poppy said glumly. “Oh, Amelia, why must our family be so odd?” “We’re not odd.” Poppy batted her hands in a dismissive gesture. “Odd people never think they’re odd.” “I’m perfectly ordinary,” Amelia protested. “Ha.” Amelia glanced at her in surprise. “Why in heaven’s name would you say ‘ha’ to that?” “You try to manage everything and everyone. And you don’t trust anyone outside the family. You’re like a porcupine. No one can get past the quills.” “Well, I like that,” Amelia said indignantly. “Being compared to a large prickly rodent, when I’ve decided to spend the rest of my entire life looking after the family—” “No one’s asked that of you.” “Someone has to do it. And I’m the oldest Hathaway.” “Leo’s the oldest.” “I’m the oldest sober Hathaway.” “That still doesn’t mean you have to martyr yourself.” “I’m not a martyr, I’m merely being responsible. And you’re ungrateful!” “Would you prefer gratitude or a husband? Personally, I’d take the husband.

There is nothing glorious in the death of a soldier - it's only a disgusting reminder of our petty and primitive self-centeredness, that keeps separating us from our own kind, simply because of some illusory borders created by illusory governments.

The world at large is not easily moved to action; it requires many terrible martyrdoms to disturb its equilibrium of dullness; and even when disturbed, it tends quickly to resume its wonted immobility. It is the thinking, radical elements which are, literally, the movers of the world, the intellectual and emotional disturbers of its stupid equanimity. They must never be suffered to become dormant, for they, too, are in danger of growing absorbed in mere adulation of the martyr and rhetorical admiration of his great work. Idols are created when men are praised, and this is very bad for the future of the human race. The time devoted to the dead would be better employed in improving the condition of the living, most of whom stand in great need of this.

We cherish martyrs not because they died for truth, but because they died for what they believed in and loved

[WASHINGTON] It’s alright, you want to fight, you’ve got a hunger I was just like you when I was younger Head full of fantasies of dyin’ like a martyr? [HAMILTON] Yes [WASHINGTON] Dying is easy, young man. Living is harder

All spiritual journeys are martyrdoms

Adolf Hitler was a Jeanne d'Arc, a saint. He was a martyr. Like many martyrs, he held extreme views.

A pastor friend of mine said, "Our problem is that we no longer have martyrs. We only have celebrities.

For some not to be martyrs is martyrdom indeed.

Ease off the martyr throttle.

History is changed by martyrs who tell the truth.

A martyr is the one who bears witness that the Shari'ah of Allah is more valuable to him than his own life.

Dead anarchists make martyrs, you know, and keep living for centuries. But absent ones can be forgotten.