“Odour of blood when Christ was slain
Made all platonic tolerance vain
And vain all Doric discipline.”
W.B. Yeats book The Tower
II, st. 1 <br class="br">The Tower (1928), Two Songs From a Play http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1741/
“Odour of blood when Christ was slain
Made all platonic tolerance vain
And vain all Doric discipline.”
W.B. Yeats book The Tower
II, st. 1 <br class="br">The Tower (1928), Two Songs From a Play http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1741/
Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist
The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Detroit, Michigan (12 April 1964)
“The water which rises in the mountain is the blood which keeps the mountain in life.”
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), I Philosophy
Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Speech at The Fourteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) (December 1925) http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/FC25.html <br class="br">Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews
Periyar E. V. Ramasamy (1879–1973) Tamil politician and social reformer
Quoted in Quotes of Periyar E. V. Ramasamy, Velivada.com
Society
Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle (1760–1836) French army officer
Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Contre nous de la tyrannie,
L'étendard sanglant est levé, (bis)
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes!</p> <p> Aux armes, citoyens,
Formez vos bataillons,
Marchons, marchons!
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!
Variant translations:
Ye sons of France, awake to glory!
Hark! hark! what myriads bid you rise!
Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary,
Behold their tears and hear their cries!
La Marseillaise (1792)
Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007) 1st President of Russia and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR
Appeal to the military to not participate in the coup attempt. (19 August 1991)
1990s
George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
Letter to Mr. George William Fairfax (31 May 1775) George Washington Papers http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mgw:@field(DOCID+@lit(gw030206)) at the Library of Congress <br class="br">1770s
Albert Barnes (1798–1870) American theologian
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 450.
“A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood.”
George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general
Letter (3 March 1944), later published in War As I Knew It (1947) Similar expressions were also used in his famous "Speech to the Third Army" in June 1944. The phrase is similar to one attributed to Erwin Rommel, "Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, and brains saves both", and to an even older one by August Willich: "A drop of sweat on the drill ground will save many drops of blood on the battlefield" from The Army: Standing Army or National Army? (1866)
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister
Quoted in The Nazi Party 1919-1945: A Complete History, Dietrich Orlow, New York: NY, Enigma Books, 2012, p 61. Goebbels’ article, “Nationalsozialisten aus Berlin und aus dem Reich”, Voelkischer Beobachter, February 4, 1927
1920s
Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist
The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)
T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader
Answering a question on homosexuality - "Shocking Lesbian Confessions At TB Joshua's Church http://www.lindaikejisblog.com/2014/03/shocking-lesbian-confessions-at-tb.html Linda Ikeji's Blog, Nigeria (March 24 2014)
Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher
Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p.435
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Bible Teaching and Religious Practice http://books.google.com/books?id=sujuHO_fvJgC&pg=PA568&dq=twain+%22Bible+Teaching+and+Religious+Practice%22&cd=1#v=onepage&q=twain%20%22Bible%20Teaching%20and%20Religious%20Practice%22&f=false. <br class="br">"Bible Teaching and Religious Practice" (1923)
Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments
Magnus Bane, to Jace Herondale, pg. 47-48
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)
“I have Russian, German, Spanish, Italian, French and Ethiopian blood in my veins.”
Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist
As quoted in TIME magazine obituary, (5 April 2004) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,501040412-607849,00.html, p. 22, which noted that his great-grandfather had married the Princess of Ethiopia.
Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States
As quoted in Many Thoughts of Many Minds: A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age (1896) edited by Louis Klopsch, p. 209.
“O mortals, from your fellows' blood abstain,
Nor taint your bodies with a food profane:
While corn, and pulse by Nature are bestow'd,
And planted orchards bend their willing load;
While labour'd gardens wholesom herbs produce,
And teeming vines afford their gen'rous juice;
Nor tardier fruits of cruder kind are lost,
But tam'd with fire, or mellow'd by the frost;
While kine to pails distended udders bring,
And bees their hony redolent of Spring;
While Earth not only can your needs supply,
But, lavish of her store, provides for luxury;
A guiltless feast administers with ease,
And without blood is prodigal to please.”
Parcite, mortales, dapibus temerare nefandis
corpora! sunt fruges, sunt deducentia ramos
pondere poma suo tumidaeque in vitibus uvae,
sunt herbae dulces, sunt quae mitescere flamma
mollirique queant; nec vobis lacteus umor
eripitur, nec mella thymi redolentia florem:
prodiga divitias alimentaque mitia tellus
suggerit atque epulas sine caede et sanguine praebet.
Book XV, 75–82 (from Wikisource); on vegetarianism, as the following quote
Metamorphoses (Transformations)
Rainer Maria Rilke book The Book of Hours
Translated by Annemarie S. Kidder
Das Stunden-Buch (The Book of Hours) (1905)
Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) Catholic saint and founder of the Franciscan Order
Letter to all the Faithful
James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States
"Letter from a Region of My Mind" in The New Yorker (17 November 1962); republished as "Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region in My Mind" in The Fire Next Time (1963)
Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II
To Leon Goldensohn, May 2, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004.
“No doubt, there was peace after all this, but it was a peace stained with blood.”
Pacem sine dubio post haec, verum cruentam.
Book I, 10; Church-Brodribb translation
Annals (117)
Gene Fowler (1890–1960) American journalist
Attributed without citation in Janice R. Matthews et al. (2000) Successful Scientific Writing. p. 53
Sometimes attributed to Douglas Adams.
John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician
'Critical Notes Upon Edward Stillingfleet's Mischief and Unreasonableness of Separation' (c. May 1681), quoted in John Marshall, John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 110
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright
Two Songs from a Play, as quoted from The Cycles of History http://www.yeatsvision.com/history.html
Stefan Zweig (1881–1942) Austrian writer
Confusion of Feelings or Confusion: The Private Papers of Privy Councillor R. Von D (1927)
Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan
Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 3 “United Hotcake Preferred” (p. 85)
Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan
Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 7 “Victory” (p. 174)
Iggy Pop (1947) American rock singer-songwriter, musician, and actor
Peter Gzowski's 90 Minutes Live interview (1977)
Otto Dix (1891–1969) German painter and printmaker
Quote from Dix' War Diary 1915–1916, Städtische Gallery, Albstadt, p. 25; as cited by Eva Karcher, Otto Dix, New York: Crown Publishers, 1987, p. 14
W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems
Byzantium, st. 4
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Part I, Ch. 3: Lenin, Trotsky and Gorky
1920s, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920)
Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States
Martin Luther, Von Kaufhandlung und Wucher, 1524, (Vol. XV, p. 302, of the Weimar edition of Luther's works).
Misattributed
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet
This statement by an unknown author has also been wrongly attributed to Julius Caesar, as well as to Shakespeare's play on his assassination and its aftermath, but there are no records of it prior to late 2000. It has been debunked at Snopes.com http://www.snopes.com/quotes/caesar.htm <br class="br">Misattributed
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor
Tribute to King Alexander, to the editor of The New York Times (19 October 1934), also at Heroes of Serbia http://www.heroesofserbia.com/2012/10/tribute-to-king-alexander-by-nikola.html
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 224
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Source: 1860s, Speech in Independence Hall (1861)
Jan Tinbergen (1903–1994) Dutch economist
As quoted in: Anis Chowdhury, Colin Kirkpatrick (2003) Development Policy and Planning: An Introduction to Models http://books.google.com/books?id=dv7eEUpkwsMC&pg=PA6. p. 6 <br class="br">"The Use of Models: Experience," 1969
Oscar Wilde book The Happy Prince and Other Tales
"The Nightingale and the Rose"
The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888)
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707–1788) French natural historian
Buffon's Natural History (1797) Vol. 10, pp. 340-341 https://books.google.com/books?id=respAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA340, an English translation of Histoire Naturelle (1749-1804).
Charles R. Drew (1904–1950) African-American physician, surgeon, and medical researcher
(1942) Spencie Love, One Blood: The Death and Resurrection of Charles R. Drew (1996) ISBN 0-8078-2250-7, 155-56, quoting as it appeared in Current Biography (1944), 180.
Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil
Beyond Good and Evil, translated by Marianne Cowan [Henry Regnery Company, 1955, p. 139]; Jenseits von Gut und Böse [Philipp Reclam, Stuttgart, 1988, p. 130]
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
Letter to Frank Belknap Long (3 May 1923), published in Selected Letters Vol. I (1965), p. 227
Non-Fiction, Letters, to Frank Belknap Long
Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet
Ibid., p. 164
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Nunca me pesou o que de trágico se passasse na China. É decoração longínqua, ainda que a sangue e peste.
Isaac McLellan (1806–1899) American writer
New England's Dead, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2009, First Inaugural Address (January 2009)
Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer
"Trouble Every Day"
Freak Out! (1966)
Harry Greb (1894–1926) American boxer
Former boxing great Gene Tunneyhttp://coxscorner.tripod.com/greb.html
Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer
My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Building to Violence
Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet
Letter Ten (26 December 1908)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
Letter to James F. Morton (10 February 1923), published in Selected Letters Vol. I (1965), p. 208
Non-Fiction, Letters, to James Ferdinand Morton, Jr.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2014, 25th Anniversary of Polish Freedom Day Speech (June 2014)
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright
September 1913 http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1576/, st. 3 <br class="br">Responsibilities (1914)
Giannina Braschi book United States of Banana
United States of Banana (2011)
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1860s, Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist
1770s, African Slavery in America (March 1775)
Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 541.
The Second Coming (1919)
Context: p>Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?</p
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2015, Remarks to the People of Africa (July 2015)
Context: I have to also say that Africa’s democratic progress is also at risk when leaders refuse to step aside when their terms end. […] When a leader tries to change the rules in the middle of the game just to stay in office, it risks instability and strife -- as we’ve seen in Burundi. And this is often just a first step down a perilous path. And sometimes you’ll hear leaders say, well, I'm the only person who can hold this nation together. If that's true, then that leader has failed to truly build their nation. […] Nobody should be president for life. And your country is better off if you have new blood and new ideas. I'm still a pretty young man, but I know that somebody with new energy and new insights will be good for my country. It will be good for yours, too, in some cases.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2011, Remarks on death of Osama bin Laden (May 2011)
Context: On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family.
We were also united in our resolve to protect our nation and to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice. We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda — an organization headed by Osama bin Laden, which had openly declared war on the United States and was committed to killing innocents in our country and around the globe. And so we went to war against al Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies.
Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War
Book VII, 7.57-[1]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VII
“I called the Navab's wine blood,”
Laxmi Prasad Devkota (1909–1959) Nepali poet
Lunatic. 5
पागल (The Lunatic)
Context: I called the Navab's wine blood, the painted whore a corpse, and the king a pauper. I attacked Alexander with insults, and denounced the so-called great souls. The lowly I have raised on the bridge of praise to the seventh heaven. Your learned pandit is my great fool, your heaven my hell, your gold my iron, friend! Your piety my sin. Where you see yourself as brilliant I find you a dolt. Your rise, friend-my decline. That's the way our values are mixed up, friend! Your whole world is a hair to me. Oh yes, friend, I'm moonstruck through and through- moonstruck! That's just the way I am.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1850s, Speech at Chicago (1858)
Context: There is something else connected with it. We have besides these men — descended by blood from our ancestors — among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe — German, Irish, French and Scandinavian — men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,' and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.
Theodoret (393–458) Syrian bishop
Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Ch. 20 (c. 429); this is usually accepted as the origin of the spurious tradition of the last words of Julian being "Thou hast won, O Galilean." No mention of such a declaration occurs in the accounts of any earlier writers, even those most hostile to Julian.
Context: Julian’s folly was yet more clearly manifested by his death. He crossed the river that separates the Roman Empire from the Persian, brought over his army, and then forthwith burnt his boats, so making his men fight not in willing but in forced obedience. The best generals are wont to fill their troops with enthusiasm, and, if they see them growing discouraged, to cheer them and raise their hopes; but Julian by burning the bridge of retreat cut off all good hope. A further proof of his incompetence was his failure to fulfil the duty of foraging in all directions and providing his troops with supplies. Julian had neither ordered supplies to be brought from Rome, nor did he make any bountiful provision by ravaging the enemy’s country. He left the inhabited world behind him, and persisted in marching through the wilderness. His soldiers had not enough to eat and drink; they were without guides; they were marching astray in a desert land. Thus they saw the folly of their most wise emperor. In the midst of their murmuring and grumbling they suddenly found him who had struggled in mad rage against his Maker wounded to death. Ares who raises the war-din had never come to help him as he promised; Loxias had given lying divination; he who glads him in the thunderbolts had hurled no bolt on the man who dealt the fatal blow; the boasting of his threats was dashed to the ground. The name of the man who dealt that righteous stroke no one knows to this day. Some say that he was wounded by an invisible being, others by one of the Nomads who were called Ishmaelites; others by a trooper who could not endure the pains of famine in the wilderness. But whether it were man or angel who plied the steel, without doubt the doer of the deed was the minister of the will of God. It is related that when Julian had received the wound, he filled his hand with blood, flung it into the air and cried, "Thou hast won, O Galilean." Thus he gave utterance at once to a confession of the victory and to a blasphemy. So infatuated was he.
Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God
The Saviors of God (1923)
Context: Enlighten the dark blood of your ancestors, shape their cries into speech, purify their will, widen their narrow, unmerciful brows. This is your second duty.
For you are not only a slave. As soon as you were born, a new possibility was born with you, a free heartbeat stormed through the great sunless heart of your race.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: In my Cabinet at the time there were men of English and French, German, Irish, and Dutch blood, men born on this side and men born in Germany and Scotland; but they were all Americans and nothing else; and every one of them was incapable of thinking of himself or of his fellow-countrymen, excepting in terms of American citizenship. If any one of them had anything in the nature of a dual or divided allegiance in his soul, he never would have been appointed to serve under me, and he would have been instantly removed when the discovery was made. There wasn't one of them who was capable of desiring that the policy of the United States should be shaped with reference to the interests of any foreign country or with consideration for anything, outside of the general welfare of humanity, save the honor and interest of the United States, and each was incapable of making any discrimination whatsoever among the citizens of the country he served, of our common country, save discrimination based on conduct and on conduct alone.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1910s, Citizenship in a Republic (1910)
Context: It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.
“I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood.”
George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general
Speech to the Third Army (1944)
Context: From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our people too hard. I don't give a good Goddamn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder we push, the more Germans we will kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that.
Alexander the Great (-356–-323 BC) King of Macedon
Addressing the dead Hellenes (the Athenean and Thebean Greeks) of the Battle of Chaeronea, as quoted in Historiae Alexandri Magni by Quintus Curtius Rufus
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works
No. 30: Letter to Stanley Unwin (25 July, 1938); Tolkien's German publishers had written to ask him whether he was of "Aryan" origin.
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981)
Context: I must say the enclosed letter from Rütten and Loening is a bit stiff. Do I suffer this impertinence because of the possession of a German name, or do their lunatic laws require a certificate of 'arisch' origin from all persons of all countries? … I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.
Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) American poet, novelist, and literary critic
The Legacy of the Civil War (1961), pp. 49–50
Context: We are right to see power prestige and confidence as conditioned by the Civil War. But it is a very easy step to regard the War, therefore, as a jolly piece of luck only slightly disguised, part of our divinely instituted success story, and to think, in some shadowy corner of our mind, of the dead at Gettysburg as a small price to pay for the development of a really satisfactory and cheap compact car with decent pick-up and road-holding capability. It is to our credit that we survived the War and tempered our national fiber in the processs, but human decency and the future security of our country demand that we look at the costs. What are some of the costs?
Blood is the first cost. History is not melodrama, even if it usually reads like that. It was real blood, not tomato catsup or the pale ectoplasm of statistics, that wet the ground at Bloody Angle and darkened the waters of Bloody Pond. It modifies our complacency to look at the blurred and harrowing old photographs — the body of the dead sharpshooter in the Devil's Den at Gettysburg or the tangled mass in the Bloody Lane at Antietam.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1830s, The Lyceum Address (1838)
Context: Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least particular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and laws let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor — let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling-books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars. While ever a state of feeling such as this shall universally or even very generally prevail throughout the nation, vain will be every effort, and fruitless every attempt, to subvert our national freedom.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1860s, Second Inaugural Address (1865)
Context: The Almighty has his own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Sec. 125
The Gay Science (1882)
Context: God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
Pope John XXIII (1881–1963) 261st Pope of the Catholic Church
Journal of a Soul (1903)
Context: From the saints I must take the substance, not the accidents of their virtues. I am not St. Aloysius, nor must I seek holiness in his particular way, but according to the requirements of my own nature, my own character and the different conditions of my life. I must not be the dry, bloodless reproduction of a model, however perfect. God desires us to follow the examples of the saints by absorbing the vital sap of their virtues and turning it into our own life-blood, adapting it to our own individual capacities and particular circumstances. If St. Aloysius had been as I am, he would have become holy in a different way.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien book On Fairy-Stories
On Fairy-Stories (1939)
Context: The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into a swift water. If it could do the one, it could do the other; it inevitably did both. When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter's power.