“Better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees.”

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Jean Paul Sartre photo
Jean Paul Sartre 321
French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, sc… 1905–1980

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Aeschylus photo

“Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.”

Aeschylus (-525–-456 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

This is usually attributed to Emiliano Zapata, but sometimes to Aeschylus, who is credited with expressing similar sentiments in Prometheus Bound: "For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life".
Misattributed

Emiliano Zapata photo

“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.

Euripidés photo
Alexey Navalny photo

“[F]orgive me if this sounds pompous, but it’s better to die standing up than live on your knees.”

Alexey Navalny (1976) Russian anti-corruption activist

Source: As quoted in "Net Impact: One man's cyber-crusade against Russian corruption" http://archive.is/FGqQE (4 April 2011), by Julia Ioffe, The New Yorker

Charb photo

“I am not afraid of reprisals, I have no children, no wife, no car, no debt. It might sound a bit pompous, but I'd prefer to die on my feet than to live on my knees.”

Charb (1967–2015) French caricaturist and journalist

Xavier Ternisien, A "Charlie Hebdo", on n'a "pas l’impression d’égorger quelqu’un avec un feutre" http://www.lemonde.fr/actualite-medias/article/2012/09/20/je-n-ai-pas-l-impression-d-egorger-quelqu-un-avec-un-feutre_1762748_3236.html, Le Monde, 20 september 2012.

Ralph Ellison photo

“And I knew that it was better to live out one's own absurdity than to die for that of others.”

Variant: And I knew that it was better to live out one's own absurdity than to die for that of others.
Source: Invisible Man (1952), Chapter 25.

Manuel Zelaya photo

“I prefer to march on my feet than to live on my knees before a military dictatorship.”

Manuel Zelaya (1952) President of Honduras

Quoted in Miami Herald, September 24, 2009. http://www.miamiherald.com/honduras/v-fullstory/story/1248828.html

Steve Biko photo

“It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die.”

Steve Biko (1946–1977) anti-apartheid activist in South Africa

Quoted in Scott MacLeod, "South Africa: Extremes in Black and Whites" http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975037,00.html, Time, March 9, 1992, p. 38
Quoted in "The Mind of Black Africa" (1996) by Dickson A. Mungazi, p. 159

Oscar Wilde photo

“For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.”

Pt. III, st. 22
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Source: The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems

Christopher Paolini photo

“Better to die than to live in fear.”

Roran, on the cause of the Varden
Inheritance (2011)

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