“Ofttimes the test of courage becomes rather to live than to die.”

— Vittorio Alfieri , Oreste

Spesso è da forte,
Più che il morire, il vivere.
Oreste, IV, 2; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 440.

Original

Spesso è da forte, | più che il morire, il vivere.

[citation needed]
Oreste
Variant: Spesso è da forte,
Più che il morire, il vivere.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Ofttimes the test of courage becomes rather to live than to die." by Vittorio Alfieri?

Vittorio Alfieri 11

Italian dramatist and poet 1749–1803

Related quotes

“Cowards fear to die; but courage stout,
Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.”

Walter Raleigh (1554–1618) English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer

On the snuff of a candle the night before he died; Raleigh's Remains, p. 258, ed. 1661

“I’ll know how to die with courage; that is easier than living.”

Georg Büchner Danton's Death

Act II.
Dantons Tod (Danton's Death) (1835)

“I'd rather die terrified than live forever.”

Joey Comeau (1980) writer

A Softer World

“I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead.”

Jimmy Buffett (1946) American singer–songwriter and businessman

“I'd rather die like a man, than live like a coward”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

“I'd rather die on my feet, than live on my knees.”

Emiliano Zapata (1879–1919) Mexican Revolutionary

Prefiero morir de pie que vivir de rodillas.
As quoted in Liberation Theologies in North America and Europe‎ (1979) by Gerald H. Anderson and Thomas F. Stransky, p. 281; this is sometimes misattributed to the more modern revolutionary, Che Guevara, and to "La Pasionaria" Dolores Ibárruri, especially in Spain, where she popularized it in her famous speeches during the Spanish Civil War, to José Martí, and to Aeschylus who is credited with a similar declaration in Prometheus Bound: "For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life." The phrase "better that we should die on our feet rather than live on our knees" was spoken by François-Noël Gracchus Babeuf in his defence of the Conspiracy of Equals in April 1797. In French it read, 'Ne vaut-il pas mieux emporter la gloire de n'avoir pas survecu a la servitude?' but translated this bears no resemblance whatever to the quote under discussion. see: The Defense of Gracchus Babeuf Before the High Court of Vendome (1967), edited and translated by John Anthony Scott, p. 88 and p. 90, n. 12.
Spanish variants:
¡Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!
I'd prefer to die standing, than to live always on my knees.
As quoted in Operación Cobra : historia de una gesta romántica (1988) by Alvaro Pablo Ortiz and Oscar Lara, p. 29
Variant translations:
Men of the South! It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!
With an extension, as quoted in Timeless Mexico (1944) by Hudson Strode, p. 259
I would rather die standing than live on my knees!
It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!
I prefer to die standing than to live forever kneeling.
Prefer death on your feet to living on your knees.