Persecution Quotes - Page 15

• It is due to neither impotence nor ignorance on God’s part that evils occur in the world, but it is owing to the order of his wisdom and to the greatness of his goodness, whence come the many and divers grades of goodness in things, many of which would be lacking were he to allow no evil to exist. Thus there would be no good of patience without the evil of persecution, nor the good of the preservation of its life in a lion, without the evil of the destruction of the animals on which it lives.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Ignorance, Greatness, Animal

  "'De Potentia' ('On Power')". Book by Thomas Aquinas, q. 3, art. 6, ad 4, dhspriory.org.

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• There can be no Good Will. Will is always Evil; it is persecution to others or selfishness.

  William Blake

  Evil, Selfishness, Good Will

  William Blake (1980). “Œuvres de William Blake”

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• Even before Melanchthon sank into his grave, he was dismayed at seeing Lutheranism stiffen into dogmas and formulas, and heartbroken by a persecution from his fellow-Protestants more bitter than anything he had ever experienced from Catholics.

  Andrew Dickson White

  Heartbroken, Catholic, Dogma

  ANDREW DICKSON WHITE (1910). “SEVEN GREAT STATESMEN IN THE WARFARE OF HUMANITY WITH UNREASON”

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• Many instances of persecution and killing have occurred in countries with atrocious human rights records such as Sri Lanka, Guatemala and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

  David Suzuki

  Country, Rights, Sri Lanka

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• The challenge of abating one with a genuine ego problem is to not try to put him down. Any and all antagonization, in his mind, is merely compensated for by his own descriptions: his feelings of persecution by the envious and his ideals of worth. Arguably, the genuine ego is more of a circumstantial defense mechanism rather than a steady arrogance in need of starvation.

  Criss Jami

  Ego Problem, Challenges, Feelings

  Criss Jami (2013). “Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality”, p.65, Criss Jami

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• History is the most dangerous product which the chemistry of the mind has concocted. Its properties are well known. It produces dreams and drunkenness. It fills people with false memories, exaggerates their reactions, exacerbates old grievances, torments them in their repose, and encourages either a delirium of grandeur or a delusion of persecution. It makes whole nations bitter, arrogant, insufferable and vainglorious.

  Paul Valery

  Dream, Memories, People

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• I support, defend, and admire prostitutes, gay or straight. They do important and necessary work, whether moralists of the Left and Right like it or not. Feminists who think they can abolish the sex trade are in a state of massive delusion. Only a ruthless, fascist regime of vast scale could eradicate the rogue sex impulse that is indistinguishable from the life force. Simply in the Western world, pagan sexuality has survived 2000 years of Judaeo-Christian persecution and is hardly going to be defeated by a few feminists whacking at it with their brooms.

  Camille Paglia

  Christian, Sex, Gay

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• Even as we slog through the trials, persecutions, irritations, temptations, distractions, apathy, and just plain weariness of this world, the gospel points us to heaven where our King Jesus — the Lamb of God who was crucified in our place and raised gloriously from the dead — now sits interceding for us. Not only so, but it calls us forward to that final day when heaven will be filled with the roaring noise of millions upon millions of forgiven voices hailing him as crucified Savior and risen King.

  Greg Gilbert

  Jesus, Kings, Irritation

  Greg Gilbert, D. A. Carson (2010). “What Is the Gospel?”, p.71, Crossway

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• [The Drafters of the Constitution] were intent on avoiding more than 100 years of religious intolerance and persecution in American colonial history and an even longer heritage of church-state problems in Europe.

  John M Swomley

  Religious, Years, Europe

  John M. Swomley (1987). “Religious liberty and the secular state: the constitutional context”

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• Systems of religious error have been adopted in times of ignorance. It has been the interest of tyrannical kings, popes, and prelates to maintain these errors. When the clouds of ignorance began to vanish and the people grew more enlightened, there was no other way to keep them in error but to prohibit their altering their religious opinions by severe persecuting laws. In this way persecution became general throughout Europe.

  Oliver Ellsworth

  Religious, Kings, Ignorance

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• Among all the religious persecutions with which almost every page of modern history is stained, no victim ever suffered but for violation of what Government denominated the law of God. To prevent a similar train of evils in this country, the Constitution has wisely withheld from our Government the power of defining the divine law.

  Richard Mentor Johnson

  Country, Religious, Government

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• President Obama understands that, as a nation founded by those who fled religious persecution, freedom of religion is central to who we are as Americans. Our rights are not given to us by government, they are endowed by our Creator.

  Denis McDonough

  Religious, Rights, Government

  Denis McDonough's Speech on International Religious Freedom, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. September 12, 2012.

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• I've been told that I am evil. I've been told that I am behind the persecution of millions of Americans. That I have encouraged hate toward gays. I've received both very brief and obscene messages, and very long and literate messages that tell me a vote for Crash was vote for homophobia.

  Roger Ebert

  Hate, Gay, Long

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

  Conrad Black

  Christian, Atrocities, World

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• When I was growing up, I, like many Jews, cheered what appeared to be the receding of faith from everyday life. The further religion got from our lives the better our lives would get, I thought, because persecution had been such a burden to Jewish families for generations.

  Bruce Feiler

  Growing Up, Everyday, Generations

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• The whole history of Christianity proves that she has little indeed to fear from persecution as a foe, but much to fear from persecution as an ally.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Allies, Littles, Christianity

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• Christians well know that the much-decorated statue of the Church, as it now stands, is not of pure chiseled marble, but of clay, cemented together by blood and tears and hardened in the fires of hatred and persecution.

  Virchand Gandhi

  Christian, Fire, Blood

  "Christian Missions: A Triangular Debate, Before the Nineteenth Century Club of New York". The Monist Magazine, Volume 5, 1895.

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• The Jewish question exists wherever the Jews live, however small their number. Where it does not exist it is imported by Jew immigrants. We naturally go where we are not persecuted, and, still persecution is the result of our appearance...By persecution we cannot be exterminated...the strong Jews turn proudly to their race when persecution bursts out. Entire branches of Judaism may disappear, break away; the tree lives.

  Theodor Herzl

  Strong, Race, Numbers

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• Though it is evident, that not more than one age or people can deserve the censure of being more averse from learning than any other, yet at all times knowledge must have encountered impediments, and wit been mortified with contempt, or harassed with persecution.

  Samuel Johnson

  Knowledge, People, Age

  Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.130

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• After Bruno's death, during the first half of the seventeenth century, Descartes seemed about to take the leadership of human thought... in promoting an evolution doctrine as regards the mechanical formation of the solar system... but his constant dread of persecution, both from Catholics and Protestants, led him steadily to veil his thoughts and even to suppress them. ...Since Roger Bacon, perhaps, no great thinker had been so completely abased and thwarted by theological oppression.

  Andrew Dickson White

  Catholic, Veils, Half

  "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom". Book by Andrew Dickson White, Vol.1, Ch.1: The Visible Universe, p. 57, 1896.

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• Opinions become dangerous to a state only when persecution makes it necessary for the people to communicate their ideas under the bond of secrecy.

  Charles James Fox

  Ideas, People, Speech

  Charles James Fox (1815). “The speeches of the right honourable Charles James Fox, in the House of Commons”, p.335

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• The patriot, like the Christian, must learn to bear revilings and persecutions as a part of his duty; and in proportion as the trial is severe, firmness under it becomes more requisite and praiseworthy. It requires, indeed, self-command. But that will be fortified in proportion as the calls for its exercise are repeated.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Christian, Exercise, Self

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.37

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• You must either suffer in this life or give up the hope of seeing God in Heaven. Sufferings and persecutions are of the greatest avail to us, because we can find therein a very efficient means to make atonement for our sins, since we are bound to suffer for them either in this world or in the next.

  Jean-Marie Le Pen

  Giving Up, Mean, Heaven

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• Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source of opinion; it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers; it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindliness in favor of systematic hatred.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wisdom, Intelligent, Hatred

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.403, Psychology Press

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• Nevertheless, to the persecution and tyranny of his cruel ministry we will not tamely submit - appealing to Heaven for the justice of our cause, we determine to die or be free . . . .

  Joseph Warren

  Patriotic, Justice, Heaven

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