Recommended quotes
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In response to a demand from Xerxes I of Persia that the Spartan army lay down their arms, at the Battle of Thermopylae, as recorded in Plutarch Apophthegmata Laconica, 225c.11 of the Moralia.
Variant: "Come and take them."
“We do not conquer the lands, we conquer the hearts.”
Source: Aşıkpaşoğlu History (Prepared: Atsız), 154
...князь утверждает, что мир спасет красота! А я утверждаю, что у него оттого такие игривые мысли, что он теперь влюблен.
The Idiot (1868–9)
Book II, ch. 3 (trans. Constance Garnett)
The Elder Zossima, speaking to a devout widow afraid of death
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)
Context: If you are penitent, you love. And if you love you are of God. All things are atoned for, all things are saved by love. If I, a sinner even as you are, am tender with you and have pity on you, how much more will God have pity upon you. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it, and cleanse not only your own sins but the sins of others.
As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1979) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 299
Book VI, chapter 3: "Conversations and Exhortations of Father Zossima; Of Prayer, of Love, and of Contact with other Worlds" (translated by Constance Garnett)
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)
Context: Brothers, have no fear of men's sin. Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God's creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day, and you will come at last to love the world with an all-embracing love. Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and untroubled joy. So do not trouble it, do not harass them, do not deprive them of their joy, do not go against God's intent. Man, do not exhale yourself above the animals: they are without sin, while you in your majesty defile the earth by your appearance on it, and you leave the traces of your defilement behind you — alas, this is true of almost every one of us! Love children especially, for like the angels they too are sinless, and they live to soften and purify our hearts, and, as it were, to guide us. Woe to him who offends a child.
My young brother asked even the birds to forgive him. It may sound absurd, but it is right none the less, for everything, like the ocean, flows and enters into contact with everything else: touch one place, and you set up a movement at the other end of the world. It may be senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but, then, it would be easier for the birds, and for the child, and for every animal if you were yourself more pleasant than you are now. Everything is like an ocean, I tell you. Then you would pray to the birds, too, consumed by a universal love, as though in ecstasy, and ask that they, too, should forgive your sin. Treasure this ecstasy, however absurd people may think it.
“To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.”
Source: Crime and Punishment (Zločin a trest)
“It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool's paradise.”
Source: The Idiot (Idiot)
“Death is an old joke, but it comes like new to everyone.”
Source: Father and Sons (1862), Ch. 27.
" Women: One Half of Our Society http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Women_-_One_half_of_our_society" (1981).
Source: The Revolution and Woman in Iraq
Context: The complete emancipation of women from the ties which held them back in the past, during the ages of despotism and ignorance, is a basic aim of the Party and the Revolution. Women make up one half of society. Our society will remain backward and in chains unless its women are liberated, enlightened and educated.
Cited in "The Nazis: A Warning from History", Disc 1, 10:48. Also quoted in "The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership" - Page 139 by Joachim C. Fest - History - 1999
SA summer furlough decree, published in Völkischer Beobachter (10 June 1934)
“If I am to be killed, let Adolf do it himself!”
The day Röhm was killed. Quoted in "Famous Last Words" - Page 68 - by Laura Ward, Robert Allen - 2004
“All revolutions devour their own children.”
Remark in prison to Hans Frank (30 June 1934) paraphrasing Pierre Vergniaud; quoted in The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership (1999) by Joachim C. Fest
“I am still today a soldier and only a soldier. (Ich bin noch heute Soldat und nur Soldat)”
Quoted in "Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf: Die Geschichte der SS" - by Heinz Höhne - 1967 - Page 26
“For all that has been — Thanks. For all that shall be — Yes.”
Variant translation: For all that has been — thanks. For all that will be — yes.
Markings (1964)
IV, 15
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IV