“Defiantly live, or in honour die, Midst slashing blades and banners flying high.”

—  Al-Mutanabbi

Source: A Young Soul

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Dec. 2, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Defiantly live, or in honour die, Midst slashing blades and banners flying high." by Al-Mutanabbi?
Al-Mutanabbi photo
Al-Mutanabbi 13
Arabic poet from the Abbasid era 915–965

Related quotes

Napoleon I of France photo

“We are born, we live, and we die in the midst of the marvelous.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)
Context: What are we? What is the future? What is the past? What magic fluid envelops us and hides from us the things it is most important for us to know? We are born, we live, and we die in the midst of the marvelous.

Kate Bush photo

“All the banners stop waving
And the flags stop flying
And the silence comes over
Thousands of soldiers…”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Aerial (2005), A Sea of Honey (Disc 1)

Horatio Nelson photo

“In honour I gained them, and in honour I will die with them.”

Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) Royal Navy Admiral

Life of Nelson (ch. 9), when asked to cover the stars on his uniform to hide his rank during battle.
1800s

Margaret Thatcher photo
Octavio Paz photo

“Oh fountain of blood, forever inexhaustible! Life will be a knife, a gray and agile and cutting and exact and arbitrary blade that falls and slashes and divides. To crack, to claw, to quarter, the verbs that move with giant steps against us!”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

The Clerk's Vision (1949)
Context: No use going out or staying at home. No use erecting walls against the impalpable. A mouth will extinguish all the fires, a doubt will root up all the decisions. It will be everywhere without being anywhere. It will blur all the. mirrors. Penetrating walls and convictions, vestments and well-tempered souls, it will install itself in the marrow of everyone. Whistling between body and body, crouching between soul and soul. And all the wounds will open because, with expert and delicate, although somewhat cold, hands, it will irritate sores and pimples, will burst pustules and swellings and dig into the old, badly healed wounds. Oh fountain of blood, forever inexhaustible! Life will be a knife, a gray and agile and cutting and exact and arbitrary blade that falls and slashes and divides. To crack, to claw, to quarter, the verbs that move with giant steps against us!
It is not the sword that shines in the confusion of what will be. It is not the saber, but fear and the whip. I speak of what is already among us. Everywhere there are trembling and whispers, insinuations and murmurs. Everywhere the light wind blows, the breeze that provokes the immense Whiplash each time it unwinds in the air. Already many carry the purple insignia in their flesh. The light wind rises from the meadows of the past, and hurries closer to our time.

Mao Zedong photo

“Thousands upon thousands of martyrs have heroically laid down their lives for the people; let us hold their banner high and march ahead along the path crimson with their blood!”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On Coalition Government (1945)

William Booth photo

“Without excuse and self-consideration of health or limb or life, true soldiers fight, live to fight, love the thickest of the fight, and die in the midst of it.”

William Booth (1829–1912) British Methodist preacher

As quoted in Revolution (2005) by Stephen Court & Aaron White .

Suzanne Collins photo

“Fly you high.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

Source: Gregor the Overlander Box Set

John Dryden photo

“The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And musick shall untune the Sky.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Grand Chorus.
A Song for St. Cecilia's Day http://www.englishverse.com/poems/a_song_for_st_cecilias_day_1687 (1687)
Source: The Major Works
Context: So, when the last and dreadful Hour
This crumbling Pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And musick shall untune the Sky.

Thomas Gray photo

Related topics