Corneliu Zelea Codreanu: Trending quotes (page 2)

“The new Romanian elite, as well as any other elite in the world, must be based on the principle of social selection. In other words, a category of people endowed with certain qualities which they then cultivate, is naturally selected from the nation's body, namely from the large healthy mass of peasantry and workingmen, which is permanently bound to the land and the country. This category of people becomes the national elite meant to lead our nation.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

People , World , Nature , Country

“Prayer is decisive element of victory. Wars are won by those who have managed to attract from elsewhere, from the skies, the mysterious forces of the invisible world and to secure their support. These mysterious forces are the souls of the dead, the souls of our ancestors, who once were, like us, linked to our clods, to our furrows, who died for the defense of this land and are still linked today to it by the memory of their lives and by us, their sons, their grandsons, their great grandsons. But, above the souls of the dead, there is God. Once these forces are attracted, they are of considerable power, they defend us, they give us courage, will, all the elements necessary to victory and which make us win. They bring in panic and terror among the enemies, paralyse their activity. In the last analysis, victories do not depend only on material preparation, on the material forces of the belligerents, but on their power to secure the support of spiritual forces. The fairness and the morality of actions and the fervent, insistent call for them in the form of rite and collective prayer attract such forces.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Religion

God , War , World , Soul

“At Posada, Calugareni, on the Olt, jiu and. Cerna rivers, at Turda; in the mountains of the unhappy and forgotten Moti of Vidra, all the way to Huedin and Alba-Iulia (the torture place of Horia and his brothers-in-arms), there are everywhere testimonies of battles and tombs of heroes. All over the Carpathians, from the Oltenian mountains at Dragoslavele and at Predeal, from Oituz to Vatra Dornei, on peaks and in valley bottoms, everywhere Romanian blood flowed like rivers. In the middle of the night, in difficult times for our people, we hear the call of the Romanian soil urging us to battle. I ask and I expect an answer: By what right do the Jews wish to take this land from us? On what historical argument do they base their pretensions and particularly the audacity with which they defy us Romanians, here in our own land? We are bound to this land by millions of tombs and millions of unseen threads that only our soul feels, and woe to those who shall try to snatch us from it.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Jewish Problem

People , Way , Feeling , Soul

“Therefore, in the last analysis, the problem facing the Romanian people today, on which all others depend, is the substitution of this fake elite with a real national one based on virtue, love and sacrifice for country, justice and love for the people, honesty, work, order, discipline, honest dealing, and honor.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

Love , People , Justice , Problem

“In one year I learned as much about anti-Semitism as would be enough for three mens' lifetimes. For you cannot wound the sacred convictions of a people, what their heart loves and respects, without causing deep pain and shedding the heart's blood. It was 17 years ago, and my heart bleeds yet.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Jewish Problem

Love , Men , Pain , People

“Legionary life is beautiful, not because of riches, partying or the acquisition of luxury, but because of the noble comradeship which binds all Legionaries in a sacred brotherhood of struggle.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), The Legion

Life , Beauty

“The Politician's goal is to build a fortune, ours is to build our homeland flowering and strong. For her we will work and we will build. For her we will make each Romanian a hero, ready to fight, ready to sacrifice, ready to die.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

The Nest Leader's Manual (1933)

Flowers , Strong , Fight

“Then legionaries wrote down several maxims I collected either from the Gospels or from other writings. They embelished our walls. Here are some of them: "God carries us on His victorious chariot." "Whoever wins…. I shall be his God." "He who does not have a sword, let him sell his cloak and buy one." "Fight bravely for faith." "Avoid carnal pleasures, for they kill the soul." "Be vigilant." "Do not destroy the hero that is in you." "Brothers in fortune… as in misfortune." "Whoever knows how to die, will never be a slave."”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

"I await the resurrection of my Fatherland and the destruction of the hordes of traitors," etc.
For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), The Legion

God , Pleasure , Faith , Soul

“Those who think that the Jews are poor unfortunates, arrived here by chance, carried by the wind, led by fate, and so on, are mistaken. All the Jews who exist on the face of the earth form a great community, bound by blood and Talmudic religion. They are parts of a truly implacable state, which has laws, plans and leaders who formulate these plans and carry them through. The whole thing is organised in the form of a so-called 'Kehillah'. This is why we are faced, not with isolated Jews, but with a constituted force, the Jewish community. In any of our cities or countries where a given number of Jews are gathered, a Kehillah is immediately set up, that is to say the Jewish community. This Kehillah has its leaders, its own judiciary, and so on. And it is in this small Kehillah, whether at the city or at the national level, that all the plans are formed : how to win the local politicians, the authorities; how to work one's way into circles where it would be useful to get admitted, for example, among the magistrates, the state employees, the senior officials; these plans must be carried out to take a certain economic sector away from a Romanian's hands; how an honest representative of an authority opposed to the Jewish interests could be eliminated; what plans to apply, when, oppressed, the population rebels and bursts in anti-Semitic movements.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Jewish Problem

Fate , Religion , Law , Way

“There is, among all those various parts of the world who serve their people, a kinship of sympathy, as there is such a kinship among those who labour for the destruction of peoples.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Jewish Problem

People , World , Parting

“It is a new form of leadership of states, never encountered yet. I don't know what designation it will be given, but it is a new form. I think that it is based on this state of mind, this state of high national consciousness which, sooner or later, spreads to the periphery of the national organism. It is a state of inner light. What previously slept in the souls of the people, as racial instinct, is in these moments reflected in their consciousness, creating a state of unanimous illumination, as found only in great religious experiences. This state could be rightly called a state of national oecumenicity. A people as a whole reach self-consciousness, consciousness of its meaning and its destiny in the world. In history, we have met in peoples nothing else than sparks, whereas, from this point of view, we have today permanent national phenomena. In this case, the leader is no longer a 'boss' who 'does what he wants', who rules according to 'his own good pleasure': he is the expression of this invisible state of mind, the symbol of this state of consciousness. He does not do what he wants, he does what he has to do. And he is guided, not by individual interests, nor by collective ones, but instead by the interests of the eternal nation, to the consciousness of which the people have attained. In the framework of these interests and only in their framework, personal interests as well as collective ones find the highest degree of normal satisfaction.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

On the form of government he plans on creating.
For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

People , Pleasure , World , Soul

“On November 8, the feast of Saints Archangels Michael and Gabriel, we were discussing the possible name for this youth organization. I said: "Let it be 'Michael the Archangel'." My father said: "There is in the church, on the left hand door of the altar, an icon of St. Michael." "Let us go see it!" Mota, Garneata, Corneliu Georgescu, Radu Mironovici, Tudose and I went to look at it and we were truly amazed. The icon appeared to us of unsurpassed beauty. I was never, attracted by the beauty of any icon. But now, I felt bound to this one with all my soul and I had the feeling the Archangel was alive. Since then, I have come to love that icon. Any time we found the church open, we entered and prayed before that icon. Our hearts were filled with peace and joy.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), The Legion

Love , Youth , Peace , Beauty

“Are we going to be the weak and cowardly generation that will relinquish, under threats, the Rumanian destiny and renounce our national mission?”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture

“The ultimate goal is not life. It is resurrection. The resurrection of nations in the name of Jesus Christ the Savior. Creation and culture are only means--not the purpose--of resurrection. Culture is the fruit of talent, which God implanted in our nation and for which we are responsible. A time will come when all the world's nations will arise from the dead, with all their dead, with all their kings and emperors. Every nation has its place before God's throne. That final moment, "resurrection from the dead," is the highest and most sublime goal for which a nation can strive. The nation is thus an entity that lives even beyond this earth. Nations are realities also in the other world, not only on this one. To us Rumanians, to our nation, as to every nation in the world, God assigned a specific mission; God has given us a historical destiny. The first law that every nation must abide by is that of attaining that destiny, of fulfilling the mission entrusted to it.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture

Life , God , World , Law

“A people becomes aware of its existence when it becomes aware of its entirety, not only of its component parts and their individual interests.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture

People , Parting

“Mussolini has destroyed communism and Freemasonry; he implicitly declared war upon Judaism too.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Jewish Problem

War , Communication

“A nation lives forever through its concepts, honor, and culture. It is for these reasons that the rulers of nations must judge and act not only on the basis of physical and material interests of the nation but on the basis of the nation's historical honor, of the nation's eternal interests. Thus: not bread at all costs, but honor at all costs.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture

“Romania is dying because of a lack of men, not a lack of programs.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

Men

“The question may thus be asked: What are the norms for international behavior? The nations' animal instincts? The tiger in them? Do the laws of the fishes in the sea or of the beasts in the forest apply?”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture

Law , Behavior , Question , Fish

“A country has the Jews it deserves. Just as mosquitoes can thrive and settle only in swamps, likewise the former can only thrive in the swamps of our sins.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Jewish Problem

Country