“Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, but brains saves both.”
Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II
A collection of quotes on the topic of blood, likeness, people, doing.
“Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, but brains saves both.”
Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II
“Fijians will never be recognized unless our blood is first shed.”
Lala Sukuna (1888–1958) Chief of Lau and civil servant in Fiji
Miscellaneous quotes
Carl Sagan book Pale Blue Dot
Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 8, Supplemental image at randi.org http://www.randi.org/images/122801-BlueDot.jpg
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920–1975) Bengali revolutionary, founder ("father") of Bangladesh
Quote, This time the struggle is for our freedom (1971)
Context: We gave blood in 1952, we won a mandate in 1954. But we were not allowed to take up the reins of this country. In 1958, Ayub Khan clamped Martial Law on our people and enslaved us for the next 10 years. In 1966, our people fought for the Six points but the lives of our our young men and women were stilled by government bullets.
Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer
Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
Ayrton Senna (1960–1994) Brazilian racing driver
Interview at the 1989 Australian Grand Prix, November 1989 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6brLntJE8s
“As we have already shed blood, we are ready to shed more blood!”
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920–1975) Bengali revolutionary, founder ("father") of Bangladesh
Source: Quote, This time the struggle is for our freedom (1971)
Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer
Handwritten note published in People (12 October 1987)
Trenton Lee Stewart The Mysterious Benedict Society
Source: The Mysterious Benedict Society
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey
İki Mustafa Kemal vardır: Biri ben, et ve kemik, geçici Mustafa Kemal... İkinci Mustafa Kemal, onu "ben" kelimesiyle ifade edemem; o, ben değil, bizdir! O, memleketin her köşesinde yeni fikir, yeni hayat ve büyük ülkü için uğraşan aydın ve savaşçı bir topluluktur. Ben, onların rüyasını temsil ediyorum. Benim teşebbüslerim, onların özlemini çektikleri şeyleri tatmin içindir. O Mustafa Kemal sizsiniz, hepinizsiniz. Geçici olmayan, yaşaması ve başarılı olması gereken Mustafa Kemal odur.
As quoted in Ataturk: First President and Founder of the Turkish Republic (2002) by Yüksel Atillasoy, p. 19
Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor
https://archive.org/stream/baburnama017152mbp/baburnama017152mbp_djvu.Txt
Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer
http://www.flixster.com/actor/leonardo-di-caprio/leonardo-dicaprio-quotes
Grigori Rasputin (1869–1916) Russian mystic
Grigory Rasputin in a letter to the Tsarina Alexandra, 7 Dec 1916
“Of all that is written I love only what a man has written in his own blood.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Source: Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None
D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter
Apocalypse (1930)
Context: What man most passionately wants is his living wholeness and his living unison, not his own isolate salvation of his "soul." Man wants his physical fulfillment first and foremost, since now, once and once only, he is in the flesh and potent. For man, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. Whatever the unborn and the dead may know, they cannot know the beauty, the marvel of being alive in the flesh. The dead may look after the afterwards. But the magnificent here and now of life in the flesh is ours, and ours alone, and ours only for a time. We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos. I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is an organic part of the great human soul, as my spirit is part of my nation. In my own very self, I am part of my family. There is nothing of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters.
Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer
http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm
Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov (1900–1986) Bulgarian philosopher
The Yoga of Nutrition, Editions Prosveta, 2012 ebook edition, pp. 24 https://books.google.it/books?id=jnoVCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT24-25.
Jan Hus (1369–1415) Czech linguist, religion writer, theologist, university educator and science writer
Last words before John Hus died singing, being martyred July 6, 1415
“Don't Cry Darling, It's Blood All Right”
Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet
Title of poem.
Many Long Years Ago (1945)
Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS
Our concern, our duty, is our people and our blood. We can be indifferent to everything else. I wish the S.S. to adopt this attitude towards the problem of all foreign, non-Germanic peoples, especially Russians....
The Posen speech to SS officers (6 October 1943)
1940s
Richard Wurmbrand (1909–2001) Romanian Christian minister of Jewish descent
If Prison Walls Could Speak (1972)
Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism
As quoted in Karl Marx: A Life, by Francis Wheen, London: UK, Fourth Estate (1999) p. 340.
“Blood sweat and tears homie I'm made of it”
Kid Cudi (1984) American rapper, singer, songwriter, guitarist and actor from Ohio
-Dat New New
Music
Martin Luther book Table Talk
Source: Table Talk (1569), pp. 552-554 (1566); cited in Susan C. Karant-Nunn & Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks [editors and translators], Luther on Women: a Sourcebook, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 157-158)
“My salad days,
When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,
To say as I said then!”
Cleopatra VII (-69–-30 BC) last active pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt
As quoted, Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare, Act I, scene V (1623)
L.J. Smith (1965) American author
Source: Nightfall
“I have a violence in me that is hot as death-blood.”
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer
Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Yukio Mishima book Runaway Horses
Source: Runaway Horses
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2018/06/02/books/book-reviews/yukio-mishimas-demons-full-force-runaway-horses/ note: Runaway Horses (1969)
George Orwell book Homage to Catalonia
Source: Homage to Catalonia (1938)
Context: I have no particular love for the idealised "worker" as he appears in the bourgeois Communist's mind, but when I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask myself which side I am on.
“Poetry is written with tears, fiction with blood, and history with invisible ink.”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game
Source: The Angel's Game
“Madam, you have bereft me of all words,
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins”
William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice
Source: The Merchant of Venice
“Use your blood to paint. Keep painting until you faint. Keep painting until you die.”
Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
“Music is my mother and my father; it is my work and my rest… my blood… my compass… my love…”
Jeff Buckley (1966–1997) American singer, guitarist and songwriter
Zhou Enlai (1898–1976) 1st Premier of the People's Republic of China
Reported in Christian Crusade Weekly (March 3, 1974) as having been said be Zhou to Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1965; reported as a likely misattribution in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 133.
Disputed
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920–1975) Bengali revolutionary, founder ("father") of Bangladesh
Quote, This time the struggle is for our freedom (1971)
George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London
Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 7
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther (1905) edited by John Nicholas Lenker; republished as Sermons of Martin Luther (1996), p. 291
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), p. 51
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
That These Words of Christ, 'This is My Body' Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics, 1527, in Luther's Works, Word and Sacrament III, 1961, Fortress Press, , volume 37, p. 54. http://books.google.com/books?ei=PxdBTeK6F4PogQe9lKizAw&ct=result&id=J-0RAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22Nicodemus%2C+joseph%2C+Paul%22&q=%22Still+Stand+Firm+Against+the+Fanatics%22#search_anchor This work appeared in vol. 2 of the Wittenberg ed. of Luther's Works (in German) and was later translated into Latin by Matthew Judex (Matthaeum Iudicem) under the title: Defensio τοῦ ρητοῦ Verborum Cenae: Accipite, Comedite: Hoc est Corpus Meum: Contra Phanaticos Sacramentariorum Spiritus. http://solomon.tcpt.alexanderstreet.com/cgi-bin/asp/philo/cpt/getobject.pl?c.121:1.cpt<br>Luther's Latin: “Nullus ex patribus, quorum infinitus est numerus, de Sacramento sic loquutus est, ut Sacramentarii. Nam nemo ex iis talibus verbis utitur Tantum panis & vinum est: Vel Corpus & Sanguis Christi non adestProfecto non est credibile, nec possibile cum toties ab iis res ista agatur & repetatur, quod non aliquando, vel semel tantum excidissent haec verba. Est merus Panis, aut, non quod Christi corpus corporaliter adsit, aut his similia, cum tamen multum referat ne homines seducantur, Sed omnes praecise ita loquuntur, quasi nullus dubitet, quin ibi praesto sit corpus & sanguis Christi. Sane ex tot patribus, & tot scriptis, ab aliquibus, vel saltem ab uno potuisset negativa sententia proferri, ut in aliis articulis usitatum & frequens est, si non sensissent, corpus & sanguinem Christi vere inesse. Verum omnes concordes & constantes uno ore affirmatium proferunt.” See Luther's Opera Omnia, Wittenberg ed., (1558), vol., 7, p. 391. http://books.google.com/books?id=jrpjO-K_kQYC&pg=PR10&dq=Accipitae+Hoc+%22corpus+meum%22+luther&hl=en&ei=9iFBTeOqIonbgQeJ4IXmAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=coenae&f=false
Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic
Lutetia; or, Paris. From the Augsberg Gazette, 12, VII (1842)
Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor
"Still Don't Give A Fuck" (Track 20).
1990s, The Slim Shady LP (1999)
“from Ahmad Shamlou's letters to his wife Ayda, the book "like the blood in my veins"”
Ahmad Shamlou (1925–2000) Iranian Persian poet, writer, and journalist
sourced, from his letters to his wife
Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter
Bad Blood, written by Taylor Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback
Song lyrics, 1989 (2014)
Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister
In: Selected Speeches of Indira Gandhi: January 1, 1982-October 30, 1984 http://books.google.com/books?id=ndA3AQAAIAAJ, Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1986, p. 495. <br class="br">Her last speech delivered in Orissa on 30 October 1984 before she was assassinated.
Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader
Journal of Discourses 13:143 (July 11, 1869)
1860s
Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia
Letter to German Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow (1 January 1906), quoted in Fritz Fischer, Germany's Aims in the First World War (New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 1967), p. 22
1900s
Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist
As quoted in Melody Maker (1992-07-18).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print
Variant: I would only wear a tie dyed T Shirt if it were dyed with the urine of Phil Collins and the blood of Jerry Garcia. [p. 269]
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician
For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture
Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni
About the defeat of Jaipal. Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. p. 27 Also quoted (in part) in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
Quotes from Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi
Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio
Canto XXX, lines 46–48.
Compare: Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae ("I feel once more the scars of the old flame", tr. C. Day Lewis), Virgil, Aeneid, Book IV, line 23.
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio
Andrea Dworkin book Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation
Source: Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation (2000), p. 246.
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
"As I Please" column in The Tribune (3 November 1944)<sup> http://alexpeak.com/twr/oocp/</sup> <br class="br">"As I Please" (1943–1947)
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party
Source: Disputed, Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant (1978), pp.16-17
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
Fiction, The Call of Cthulhu (1926)
Context: There had been aeons when other Things ruled on the earth, and They had had great cities. Remains of Them, he said the deathless Chinamen had told him, were still be found as Cyclopean stones on islands in the Pacific. They all died vast epochs of time before men came, but there were arts which could revive Them when the stars had come round again to the right positions in the cycle of eternity. They had, indeed, come themselves from the stars, and brought Their images with Them.
These Great Old Ones, Castro continued, were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape — for did not this star-fashioned image prove it? — but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die...
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew<cite>Luther's Works</cite>, American Edition (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1962), Volume 45, Page 201.
Context: When we are inclined to boast of our position [as Christians] we should remember that we are but Gentiles, while the Jews are of the lineage of Christ. We are aliens and in-laws; they are blood relatives, cousins, and brothers of our Lord. Therefore, if one is to boast of flesh and blood the Jews are actually nearer to Christ than we are.
Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer
Source: Tropic of Cancer (1934), Chapter One
Context: Well, I'll take these pages and move on. Things are happening elsewhere. Things are always happening. It seems wherever I go there is drama. People are like lice - they get under your skin and bury themselves there. You scratch and scratch until the blood comes, but you can't get permanently deloused. Everywhere I go people are making a mess of their lives. Everyone has his private tragedy. It's in the blood now - misfortune, ennui, grief, suicide. The atmosphere is saturated with disaster, frustration, futility. Scratch and scratch, until there's no skin left. However, the effect upon me is exhilarating. Instead of being discouraged or depressed, I enjoy it. I am crying for more and more disasters, for bigger calamities, grander failures. I want the whole world to be out of whack, I want every one to scratch himself to death.
“Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood”
Daniel Burnham (1846–1912) American architect and urban designer
Burnham (1907) quoted in: Charles Moore (1921) Daniel H. Burnham, Architect, Planner of Cities. Volume 2 http://archive.org/stream/danielhburnhamar02moor#page/n7/mode/2up. Chapter XXV "Closing in 1911-1912;" p. 147 http://archive.org/stream/danielhburnhamar02moor#page/147/mode/1up <br class="br">Context: Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and our grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty.
“I hardly sustain myself beneath the weight of white men's blood that I have shed.”
Sitting Bull (1831–1890) Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man and holy man
Recorded by the Jesuit priest Pierre-Jean De Smet after a council with Sitting Bull on June 19, 1868. Published in Utley, Robert M. The Lance and the Shield. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1993. p. 79-80.
Context: I hardly sustain myself beneath the weight of white men's blood that I have shed. The whites provoked the war; their injustices, their indignities to our families, the cruel, unheard of and wholly unprovoked massacre at Fort Lyon … shook all the veins which bind and support me. I rose, tomahawk in hand, and I have done all the hurt to the whites that I could.
“There are so many! It is going to be a feast. There will be blood up to your knees.”
Ratko Mladić (1943) Commander of the Bosnian Serb military
Nedzida Sadikovic, as quoted by Roy Gutman, Newsday News Service, August 9, 1995.
Srebrenica Massacre
Nathuram Godse (1910–1949) Assassin of Mahatma Gandhi
Nathuram Godse: Why I Assassinated Gandhi (1993)
Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church
Source: Movie The Two Popes, Jonathan Pryce as Pope Francis
Mark Wahlberg (1971) American actor, television producer and rap musician
Source: Mark on the September 11 attacks in a 2012 interview
James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)
Though this had been cited as being from a letter objecting to the use of government land for churches in 1803 https://web.archive.org/web/20061123043628/http://www.positiveatheism.org///hist/quotes/madison.htm#PHONYMAD, as quoted in 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People With the Courage to Doubt (1996) edited by James A Haught, no original source for this has yet been found. <br class="br">Misattributed
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer
Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
Source: Palestine Peace Not Apartheid