It is the cause, not the death that makes the martyr.
I am as content to die for God's eternal truth on the scaffold as in any other way.
Martyrs, my friend, have to choose between being forgotten, mocked or used. As for being understood -- never.
Great persecutors are recruited among martyrs whose heads haven't been cut off.
No human beings more dangerous than those who have suffered for a belief: the great persecutors are recruited from the martyrs not quite beheaded. Far from diminishing the appetite for power, suffering exasperates it.
The people who have really made history are the martyrs.
Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution.
We are not here to triumph by fighting, by strata gem, or by resistance, not to fight with beasts as men. We have fought the beast and have conquered. We have only to conquer now, by suffering. This is the easier victory.
The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.
The torments of martyrdom are probably most keenly felt by the bystanders.
Martyrdom does not end something, it only a beginning.
Even if I died in the service of the nation, I would be proud of it. Every drop of my blood... will contribute to the growth of this nation and to make it strong and dynamic.
While I do not suggest that humanity will ever be able to dispense with its martyrs, I cannot avoid the suspicion that with a little more thought and a little less belief their number may be substantially reduced.
The way of the world is, to praise dead saints, and persecute living ones.
What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion --I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more --I could be martyred for my religion --Love is my religion --I could die for that.
The difference between a man who faces death for the sake of an idea and an imitator who goes in search of martyrdom is that whilst the former expresses his idea most fully in death it is the strange feeling of bitterness which comes from failure that the latter really enjoys; the former rejoices in his victory, the latter in his suffering.
Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.
It is more difficult, and it calls for higher energies of soul, to live a martyr than to die one.
The martyr sacrifices themselves entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for they make the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.
There are in every generation those who shrink from the ultimate sacrifice, but there are in every generation those who make it with joy and laughter and these are the salt of the generations.
I will soon be going out to shape all the singing tomorrows.
Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never of the correctness of a belief.
Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.
No man dies for what he knows to be true. Men die for what they want to be true, for what some terror in their hearts tells them is not true.