{"quotes":[{"text":"Every November of my boyhood, we put on red poppies and attended highly patriotic services in remembrance of those who had 'given' their lives. But on what assurance did we know that these gifts had really been made? Only the survivors—the living—could attest to it. In order to know that a person had truly laid down his life for his friends, or comrades, one would have to hear it from his own lips, or at least have heard it promised in advance. And that presented another difficulty. Many brave and now dead soldiers had nonetheless been conscripts. The known martyrs—those who actually, voluntarily sought death and rejoiced in the fact—had been the kamikaze pilots, immolating themselves to propitiate a 'divine' emperor who looked (as Orwell once phrased it) like a monkey on a stick. Their Christian predecessors had endured torture and death (as well as inflicted it) in order to set up a theocracy. Their modern equivalents would be the suicide murderers, who mostly have the same aim in mind. About people who set out to lose their lives, then, there seems to hang an air of fanaticism: a gigantic sense of self-importance unattractively fused with a masochistic tendency to self-abnegation. Not whol.","author":"Christopher Hitchens","tags":["boyhood","causes","childhood","christian-martyrs","christianity","comrades","conscription","death","fanaticism","friends","kamikaze","martyrdom","martyrs","masochism","memorials","november","orwell","patriotism","poppies","principles","religion","sacrifice","self-abnegation","self-importance","soldiers","suicide","suicide-attack","theocracy","torture","ugliness","war"],"id":11922,"author_id":"Christopher+Hitchens"},{"text":"The pages of history are red with the blood of illuminated 'saints' who were murdered by their religions for actually achieving the advertised spiritual rewards.","author":"Christopher S. Hyatt","tags":["1991","attainment","irony","martyrs","saints"],"id":19300,"author_id":"Christopher+S.+Hyatt"},{"text":"When Abbess Ebba received tidings of the near approach of the pagan hordes, who had already wrecked vengeance upon ecclesiastics, monks, and consecrated virgins, she summoned her nuns to Chapter, and in a moving discourse exhorted them to preserve at any cost the treasure of their chastity. Then seizing a razor, and calling upon her daughters to follow her heroic example, she mutilated her face in order to inspire the barbarian invaders with horror at the sight. The nuns without exception courageously followed the example of their abbess. When the Danes broke into the cloister and saw the nuns with faces thus disfigured, they fled in panic. Their leaders, burning with rage, sent back some of their number to set fire to the monastery, and thus the heroic martyrs perished in the common ruin of their house.","author":"Michael Barrett","tags":["catholic","courage","martyrs","pagans","saints"],"id":36397,"author_id":"Michael+Barrett"},{"text":"We are humans, they say we are mortals. Though we do live once but can last forever.","author":"M.H. Rakib","tags":["14august","forever","humans","martyrs","mortals","pakistan"],"id":48642,"author_id":"M.H.+Rakib"},{"text":"Every November of my boyhood, we put on red poppies and attended highly patriotic services in remembrance of those who had 'given' their lives. But on what assurance did we know that these gifts had really been made? Only the survivors—the living—could attest to it. In order to know that a person had truly laid down his life for his friends, or comrades, one would have to hear it from his own lips, or at least have heard it promised in advance. And that presented another difficulty. Many brave and now dead soldiers had nonetheless been conscripts. The known martyrs—those who actually, voluntarily sought death and rejoiced in the fact—had been the kamikaze pilots, immolating themselves to propitiate a 'divine' emperor who looked (as Orwell once phrased it) like a monkey on a stick. Their Christian predecessors had endured torture and death (as well as inflicted it) in order to set up a theocracy. Their modern equivalents would be the suicide murderers, who mostly have the same aim in mind. About people who set out to lose their lives, then, there seems to hang an air of fanaticism: a gigantic sense of self-importance unattractively fused with a masochistic tendency to self-abnegation. Not wholesome. Your life?","author":"Christopher Hitchens","tags":["boyhood","causes","childhood","christian-martyrs","christianity","comrades","conscription","death","fanaticism","friends","kamikaze","martyrdom","martyrs","masochism","memorials","november","orwell","patriotism","poppies","principles","religion","sacrifice","self-abnegation","self-importance","soldiers","suicide","suicide-attack","theocracy","torture","ugliness","war"],"id":95133,"author_id":"Christopher+Hitchens"},{"text":"If you want to be a good parent then be a great leader. You should live a life with passion for someone and something. The legacy you leave your children shouldn't be how you suffered in gratitude for a life you had no passion for. Rather, it should be how grateful you are to a God that believes fairytales can come true because they came true for you.","author":"Shannon L. Alder","tags":["achieving-dreams","attitude","best-life","choices","creating-miracles","example","fairytales","grateful","honest-life","honesty","legacy","love","martyrs","miracles","self-respect","stayingpositiveu-com","the-best-life","true-responsibility-to-kids"],"id":101579,"author_id":"Shannon+L.+Alder"},{"text":"Whether you go your separate ways or stay together, you will continue to witness--against ignorance, against cruelty, and on behalf of all that is beautiful about this strange and crooked world.","author":"Adam Gidwitz","tags":["beauty","goodness","life","martyrs","truth"],"id":112927,"author_id":"Adam+Gidwitz"},{"text":"The problem with martyrs is that they’re all dead. What do they have to do with us that are simple enough to still be alive? Should we just give up and want to die because death is better than dishonor? But suicide is a sin too so we really are damned if we do and damned if we don't.","author":"Rosamund Hodge","tags":["honor","martyrdom","martyrs"],"id":144140,"author_id":"Rosamund+Hodge"},{"text":"St. Triduana devoted herself to God in a solitary life at Rescobie in Angus (now Forfarshire). While dwelling there, a prince of the country having conceived an unlawful passion for her is said to have pursued her with his unwelcome attentions. To rid herself of his importunities, as a legend relates, Triduana bravely plucked out her beautiful eyes, her chief attraction, and sent them to her admirer. Her heroism, it is said, procured for her the power of curing diseases of the eyes.","author":"Michael Barrett","tags":["catholic","eyes","martyrs","saints"],"id":146112,"author_id":"Michael+Barrett"},{"text":"Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets.","author":"George Eliot","tags":["martyrs","poets","sages","saints"],"id":150403,"author_id":"George+Eliot"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":32,"pages":4,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}