Our character is not defined by the struggles and conflicts…

“You have to understand that people have to pay the price for peace. If you dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not to struggle then god damn it, you don’t deserve to win. Let me say peace to you, if you’re willing to fight for it.”

Fred Hampton (1948–1969) African-American activist

Excerpt from The Murder of Fred Hampton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7F8RfnDhkA (1971).

“It also permitted me to understand the vicious character of money, the inhuman character of the power of money that renders man practically useless for society and for himself. And I think that the experience that I have lived is an experience that comforts me in our struggle to make the life of man more human, more beautiful and rich. I think that we can win this fight, but not alone. We can win it together, in unity.”

Basile Mvé Engone (1941) Catholic bishop

Reflections of bishops after our week of study on Social Credit https://www.michaeljournal.org/articles/pilgrims-of-st-michael/item/reflections-of-bishops-after-our-week-of-study-on-social-credit-3 (1 October 2011)

“We fight, we dare, we end our hunger for justice.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

“It is another conflict, a conflict as fundamental as Lincoln's, fought not with glint of steel, but with appeals to reason and justice on a thousand fronts — seeking to save for our common country opportunity and security for citizens in a free society. We are near to winning this battle. In its winning and through the years may we live by the wisdom and the humanity of the heart of Abraham Lincoln.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1930s, Address at the Dedication of the Memorial on the Gettysburg Battlefield (1938)
Context: To the hurt of those who came after him, Lincoln's plea was long denied. A generation passed before the new unity became accepted fact. In later years new needs arose, and with them new tasks, worldwide in their perplexities, their bitterness and their modes of strife. Here in our land we give thanks that, avoiding war, we seek our ends through the peaceful processes of popular government under the Constitution. It is another conflict, a conflict as fundamental as Lincoln's, fought not with glint of steel, but with appeals to reason and justice on a thousand fronts — seeking to save for our common country opportunity and security for citizens in a free society. We are near to winning this battle. In its winning and through the years may we live by the wisdom and the humanity of the heart of Abraham Lincoln.

“Any fool can fight a winning battle, but it needs character to fight a losing one, and that should inspire us; which reminds me that I dreamed the other night that I was being hanged, but was the life and soul of the party.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

“We do not struggle for ourselves, nor for our race, not even for humanity.
We do not struggle for Earth, nor for ideas.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)
Context: We do not struggle for ourselves, nor for our race, not even for humanity.
We do not struggle for Earth, nor for ideas. All these are the precious yet provisional stairs of our ascending God, and they crumble away as soon as he steps upon them in his ascent.
In the smallest lightning flash of our lives, we feel all of God treading upon us, and suddenly we understand: if we all desire it intensely, if we organize all the visible and invisible powers of earth and fling them upward, if we all battle together like fellow combatants eternally vigilant — then the Universe might possibly be saved.
It is not God who will save us — it is we who will save God, by battling, by creating, and by transmuting matter into spirit.

“(letter adressed to Mihai Antonescu, 6 september 1941) „We must all understand that this is not a fight against Slavs, but against the Jews. It's a battle for life and death. Either we win and the world will purify, or they'll win and we'll become their slaves. Both the war in general and the battles at Odessa, especially, have made the proof that the Jew is Satan.”

Ion Antonescu (1882–1946) prime minister and conducător of Romania during World War II

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJodTuDeoYg

“The conflict which we have to fight is still a conflict of tariffs. In every country resolutions are being formed and plans are being worked out for limiting still further the intercourse of nations with each other and interposing new barriers of tariff... And as years go on we shall have to fight that battle. ... It is the world's conflict of the future.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Speech in the Mansion House, London (10 November 1890), quoted in The Times (11 November 1890), p. 4
1890s

“Dare to struggle; dare to win! Attack and smash the power of imperialism! It is the duty of every revolutionary to make the revolution!We call on all militants in the Federal Republic to make all American establishments targets of their attacks in their struggle against US imperialism! Long live the RAF!”

Ulrike Meinhof (1934–1976) German left-wing militant

The Red Army Faction: A Documentary History, Volume One: Projectiles for the People.

“It is impossible to win the race unless you venture to run, impossible to win the victory unless you dare to battle. ”

Richard M. DeVos (1926–2018) American businessman

“Our character is not defined by the struggles and conflicts we traverse in life, nor by wins and losses; but instead, by the battles we dare to fight.”

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