“A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Variant: If a man hasn’t found something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.
Source: The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1960s, Cobo Center speech (1963)
“We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.”
Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary
As quoted in Wise Guys : Brilliant Thoughts and Big Talk from Real Men (2005) by Allan Zullo, p. 36
“He who does not wish to die cannot have wished to live.”
Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXX: On conquering the conqueror
“We have tried to fit man into abstraction, but he does not fit.”
Mark Tobey (1890–1976) American abstract expressionist painter
Statement in his Bahai lecture, Oct 30, 1951, as quoted in Abstract Expressionist Painting in America, W.C, Seitz, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1983, p. 104
1950's
“Whoever lives as he sees fit will not die as he sees fit.”
Shams-i Tabrizi (1185–1248) 1185-1248, spiritual instructor of Mewlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhi.
Me & Rumi (2004)
“That man lives badly who does not know how to die well.”
Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist
On Tranquility of the Mind
Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher
Tel homme qui dans un excès de mélancolie se tue aujourd’hui aimerait à vivre s’il attendait huit jours. <br class="br"> "Cato" http://www.voltaire-integral.com/Html/18/caton.htm (1764) <br class="br">Citas, Dictionnaire philosophique (1764)
“Who wills, Can.
Who tries, Does.
Who loves, Lives.”
Anne McCaffrey (1926–2011) American-Irish novelist
Source: "Dragonrider", published in Analog (January 1968), p. 148; also in Dragonsong, (1976) Ch. 7, p. 89
Henry Fountain Ashurst (1874–1962) United States Senator from Arizona
"Ashurst, Defeated, Reviews Service". New York Times (September 12, 1940), p. 18.
