Address to Grand Jury (1885)
Variant: I believed that I had a mission, I believe that I had a mission at this very moment.
The Queen Vs. Louis Riel : Accused and Convicted of the Crime of High Treason. Report of Trial at Regina (1886), p. 147 http://books.google.com/books?id=jLANAAAAQAAJ&output=text
Context: It is true, gentlemen, I believed for years I had a mission, and when I speak of a mission you will understand me not as trying to play the role of insane before the grand jury so as to have a verdict of acquittal upon that ground. I believe that I have a mission, I believe I had a mission at this very time. What encourages me to speak to you with more confidence in all the imperfections of my English way of speaking, it is that I have yet and still that mission, and with the help of God, who is in this box with me, and He is on the side of my lawyers, even with the honorable court, the Crown and the jury, to help me, and to prove by the extraordinary help that there is a Providence to-day in my trial, as there was a Providence in the battles of the Saskatchewan.
“Even if I was going to be sentenced by you, Gentlemen of the Jury, I have this satisfaction that if I die, I will not be reputed by all men as insane, as a lunatic.”
Address to Grand Jury (1885)
Context: Even if I was going to be sentenced by you, Gentlemen of the Jury, I have this satisfaction that if I die, I will not be reputed by all men as insane, as a lunatic. A good deal has been said by the two Revd Fathers André and Fourmond. I cannot call them my friends, but they made no false testimony. I know that a long time ago they believed me more or less insane. Father Fourmond said that I would pass from a great passion to great calmness, that shows great control under contradiction and according to my opinion and with the help of God, I have that control.
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Louis Riel 28
Canadian politician 1844–1885Related quotes
Entry (1977)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)
Context: Disraeli felt that "nothing could compensate his obscure youth, not even a glorious old age." Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences — nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.
If I have any influence in the New World it is to help in that way and even if it takes two hundred years to become practical, then after my death that will bring out practical results, and then my children will shake hands with the Protestants of the New World in a friendly manner. I do not wish those evils which exist in Europe to be continued as much as I can influence it, among the Half-breeds. I do not wish that to be repeated in America, that work is not the work of some days or some years it is the work of hundreds of years.
Address to Grand Jury (1885)
Statement on I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby decision http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19570172/ (July 2, 2007)
2000s, 2007
“There are some days when I think I'm going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.”
An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony on the Charge of Illegal Voting] (1874)
Trial on the charge of illegal voting (1874)
Interview by David Shankbone (3 December 2007).[citation needed]
Williams' Case (1797), 26 How. St. Tr. 683.
“Not all segregationists are lunatics, or even dishonest men.”
Ten Everlovin' Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo (1959); an aside while recounting the 1954 shooting in the US Congress public-viewing gallery. Kelly noted that the shooters were not lunatic-fringe segregationists, then added the aside in a footnote.
“Gentlemen, you may soon have the alternative to live as slaves or die as free men”
from his speech in Mallow, County Cork