Quotes Tagged "persecution"

Considering he was neither priest nor scholar, the young man gave sensible, thoughtful replies -- the more so, perhaps, for being untrained, for he had not learned what he should believe or should not believe. Present a statement to him in flagrant contradiction to all Christian doctrine and he could be persuaded to agree on its good sense, unless he remembered it was the sort of thing of which pyres are made for the incautious.

The longer he remained on this earth, the more he was sure that mankind had no clue about God or heaven. Not when they used him as an excuse to kill, to punish, to discriminate.

There was a time when skepticism was an act of rebellion. Since to a degree I both believe in evolution and have faith, I can only conclude that, as prophesied, to have faith will someday be an act of rebellion.

The idea that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods, which most experience refutes. History is teeming with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not put down forever, it may be set back for centuries.

Hurricanes couldn’t remove you from my mind. You’re my world and I’m incapable of not loving you.

When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Bronte who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to. Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

The neo-cons, or some of them, decided that they would back Clinton when he belatedly decided for Bosnia and Kosovo against Milosevic, and this even though they loathed Clinton, because the battle against religious and ethnic dictatorship in the Balkans took precedence. This, by the way, was partly a battle to save Muslims from Catholic and Christian Orthodox killers. That impressed me. The neo-cons also took the view, quite early on, that coexistence with Saddam Hussein was impossible as well as undesirable. They were dead right about that. They had furthermore been thinking about the menace of jihadism when most people were half-asleep. And then I have to say that I was rather struck by the way that the Weekly Standard and its associated voices took the decision to get rid of Trent Lott earlier this year, thus removing an embarrassment as well as a disgrace from the political scene. And their arguments were on points of principle, not 'perception.' I liked their ruthlessness here, and their seriousness, at a time when much of the liberal Left is not even seriously wrong, but frivolously wrong, and babbles without any sense of responsibility. (I mean, have you read their sub-Brechtian stuff on Halliburton....?) And revolution from above, in some states and cases, is—as I wrote in my book A Long Short War—often preferable to the status quo, or to no revolution at all.

Philip bullied the first Avignon Pope, Clement V, into authorizing the trials of the Templars, and with this authority put them to atrocious tortures to extract confessions. Medieval justice was scrupulous about holding proper trials and careful not to sentence without proof of guilt, but it achieved proof by confession rather than evidence, and confession was routinely obtained by torture. The Templars, many of them old men, were racked, thumbscrewed, starved, hung with weights until joints were dislocated, had teeth and fingernails pulled one by one, bones broken by the wedge, feet held over flames, always with pauses in between and the “question” put again each day until confession was wrung or the victim died. Thirty-six died under the treatment; some committed suicide. Broken by torture, the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, and 122 others confessed to spitting on the cross or some other variation of crime put into their mouths by the Inquisitors. “And he would have confessed that he had slain God Himself if they had asked him that,” acknowledged a chronicler.

____________FREEDOM____________ Each person has the right to freedom. A freedom of speech. A freedom of will. A freedom to love. A freedom free of persecution. A freedom to be an individual if they so desire. A freedom from discrimination. A freedom of religion and faith. A freedom from discrimination. A freedom to share life with others and not judge. A freedom to be who they are. God, Buddha and Allah gave us a choice. We chose freedom so that we could follow in their wisdom, knowledge and footsteps. Yet, we practice discrimination, persecution and bias on a daily basis. We live by man's word alone and not theirs! It's time we changed that and become who we were meant to be! I'm not out to change the world. I'm only out to change one person and then the rest will then follow of their own accord.

Perhaps the gravest under-publicized atrocity in the world is the persecution of Christians.

Persecution produced its natural effect on them. It found them a sect; it made them a faction.

Kinsey would identify himself with Galileo in moments of feelings of persecution.

Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.

Journalism has a special, hallowed place for stories of its practitioners' persecution.

Religion which requires persecution to sustain, it is of the devil's propagation.

The advancement of all sciences, especially where there has been such a radical change, have been attended with persecution.

We know that Maduro's armies are riddled with persecution, torture, threats, and wrongful arrests.