Beyond all the other reasons not to do it, free speech assaults always backfire: they transform bigots into martyrs.

For the church, the many abuses of human life, liberty, and dignity are a heartfelt suffering. The church, entrusted with the earth’s glory, believes that in each person is the Creator’s image and that everyone...

But its exclusive character and irreconcileable hostility to the religious cults and ceremonies with which the whole social life of the city-state and the empire were inseparably connected at every turn, brought the Christians into...

The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders.

Without love everything can be nothing. Does that make me want to love? No. For me, Ignorance is still better than martyrdom.

The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.

Every November of my boyhood, we put on red poppies and attended highly patriotic services in remembrance of those who had ‘given’ their lives. But on what assurance did we know that these gifts had...

Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.

Great persecutors are recruited among martyrs whose heads haven’t been cut off.

People unable to bear the martyrdom […] unintelligently jump off the path, and choose instead, conveniently enough, the world’s admiration of their proficiency. The true knight of faith is a witness, never a teacher, and...

In Sarajevo in 1992, while being shown around the starved, bombarded city by the incomparable John Burns, I experienced four near misses in all, three of them in the course of one day. I certainly...

What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

No human beings more dangerous than those who have suffered for a belief: the great persecutors are recruited from the martyrs not quite beheaded. Far from diminishing the appetite for power, suffering exasperates it.

With no doubt Al Hussain was one of the greatest rebels, for correcting the path of rulers who deviated from the right path. He, by his stance honorably acquired martyrdom martyrdom that free people wish...

One of the questions asked by al-Balkhi, and often repeated to this day, is this: Why do the children of Israel continue to suffer? My grandmother Dodo thought it was because the goyim were jealous....

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

We would do our theology better if more was at stake in what we said.

The noble heart will find no shortage of places to offer itself in martyrdom, but you cannot die on every battlefield.”~ Duncan Sinclair, from The Outcast Highlander

You’re mad, you missionaries,’ ejaculated Tai Haruru angrily. ‘What good do you think you do, crawling out to the extremities of all the different world’s ends and dying there like lizards spiked on sticks?’Brother Balaam...

The anarch sticks to facts, not ideas. He suffers not for facts but because of them, and usually through his own fault, as in a traffic accident. Certainly, there are unforeseeable things – maltreatments. However,...

There are perhaps many causes worth dying for, but to me, certainly, there are none worth killing for.

The difference between a man who faces death for the sake of an idea and an imitator who goes in search of martyrdom is that whilst the former expresses his idea most fully in death...

If life is music, I sometimes feel as though I was born on the off-beat of the song, and I love it. As Christian numbers reportedly decrease in America, my love for Christ feels as...

I have been astonished that men could die martyrsfor their religion–I have shuddered at it,I shudder no more.I could be martyred for my religion.Love is my religionand I could die for that.I could die for...

The classic Aryan who idolized himself and who existed in his own dreams could not bear to see the Jew, the evidence of divine reality,and he would kill him.

The claim at the heart of this book has been carefully researched by several generations of scholars and is orthodox in academic circles, if not beyond. Christians under the Roman Empire were neither constantly persecuted...

A man of God has many brothers. He is a wounded soldier – he is familiar with the pain one feels in his heart, as a close and loving brother, when a brother falls victim...

victimization” by the people to whom we are giving. We may be completely unaware of our expectations of those we assist, and our own anger and resentment may catch us off guard. This is why...

The expression on her face was noble. It was a great deal TOO noble.

We are not here to triumph by fighting, by strata gem, or by resistance, not to fight with beasts as men. We have fought the beast and have conquered. We have only to conquer now,...

As Luxenberg’s work has only recently been published we must await its scholarly assessment before we can pass any judgements. But if his analysis is correct then suicide bombers, or rather prospective martyrs, would do...

deserving” jerk who has it coming after all we do for him/her! As the final insult rings across the room and we regain consciousness, we are horrified by what has come out of our mouth....

If there is still one hellish, truly accursed thing in our time, it is our artistic dallying with forms, instead of being like victims burnt at the stake, signaling through the flames.

We are at our best when we love the Lord and his church more than our style of life. We do not believe in our country, right or wrong. If evil has such a grip...

The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom really is the amount of press coverage.

…in a brutal country like ours where human life is cheap, it’s stupid to destroy yourself for the sake of your beliefs. Beliefs, high ideals–only people living in rich countries can enjoy such luxuries.’ ‘Actually,...

When, in 2012, Newt Gingrich was asked about how his religious beliefs would affect his conduct should he become president, the Republican nominee hopeful answered, “One of the reasons I am running is there has...

The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.

I suppose it’s something to do with her black-brained religion not to take care of the body.

If we seek spiritual heroism ourselves, the old ego is just back in control under a new name. There would not really be any change at all, but only disguise, just bogus self-improvement on our...

Often the contempt of vainglory becomes a source of even more vainglory, for it is not being scorned when the contempt is something one is proud of.

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