38 Quotes About Martyrs

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.

A heroic, losing battle! I'm tired of brave men who die. There's nothing pretty about losing.

Is it just possible that the most vigorous and boldest idealists have been the worst enemies of human progress instead of its greatest creators? Possible that plain men with the humble trait of minding their own business will rank higher in the heavenly hierarchy than all the plumed souls who have shoved their way in among the masses and insisted on savings them?

We are humans, they say we are mortals. Though we do live once but can last forever.

There are hundreds of political prisoners right now in America’s jails who were so taken by Malcolm [X’s} spirit that they became warriors and the powers that be understood them as warriors. They knew that a lot of these other middle-class [black] leaders were not warriors; they were professionals; they were careerists. But these warriors had callings, and they have paid an incalculable and immeasurable price in those cells.

For it is the property of those who expect to obtain mercy by prayer and sacrifices, to cease from and repent of their sins.

Martyrdoms would rarely lead to conversions because they were themselves relatively rare.The vast majority of pagans—including the millions who eventually converted—never saw a martyrdom, as recent scholarship has shown.As the most prolific and one of the best-traveled authors of the first three Christian centuries, Origen of Alexandria, stated in no uncertain terms: “Only a small number of people, easily counted, have died for the Christian religion.

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.

What a trajedy to be a martyr for love, yet we worship the characters anyways because they remind us of how we struggled.