Armenian Quotes & Sayings

Trust a snake before a Jew and a Jew before a Greek,but don't trust an Armenian — George Orwell

The Armenians will willingly harbor
revolutionaries, arrange for their entertainment and the furthering of their ends. The pride of race brings about many singularities and prompts the Armenians to prey on missionaries, Jesuits, consuls and European traveler with rapacity and ingratitude. The poor Armenians will demand assistance in a loud tone, yet will seldom give thanks for a donation. Abuse of Consular officers and missionaries is only a part of the stock-in-trade of the extra-Armenian press. — Mark Sykes

As we know, the goal of every struggle is victory. But if the proletariat is to achieve victory, all the workers, irrespective of nationality , must be united. Clearly, the demolition of national barriers and close unity between the Russian, Georgian, Armenian, Polish, Jewish and other proletarians is a necessary condition for the victory of the proletariat of all Russia. — Joseph Stalin

He sleeps for himself and dreams for others. — Anonymous

The world saw and understood that, when it comes to the normalization of the Armenian-Turkish relations, they have to deal not just with Armenia with its three million population, but with the ten million Armenians. And let no one ignore the fact that, contrary to any slogans, the Armenian nation is united in its goals and is strong with its sons and daughters. — Serzh Sargsyan

When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact ... I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915. — Henry Morgenthau, Sr.

The attempt to justify and rationalize the death of a whole nation, including women, children, the old and infirm, must itself be considered a crime against humanity. — Taner Akcam

The Lebanese government has officially recognized the Armenian genocide, but nowhere is there any official memorial to the victims of the World War I famine. — Louis Farshee

a South American mercenary who served as Inspector General of the Turkish forces in Armenia, reported that the Governor-General of the province had ordered the local authorities in Adil Javus 'to exterminate all Armenian males of twelve years of age and over'. — Niall Ferguson

Armenian Cognac

A bottle of cognac from Yerevan
is on my kitchen table
as closed as that history
and as silent
If I broke it down I'd lose a hundred years
of love
and if I opened it the ancestors
hanging here in black and white
would come down from the walls
to have a glass with me
I know a history that's been forgotten
and I know why that bottle of cognac
stands with such singular pride....

If I broke it now I'd lose a hundred years
of my people's history — Najwan Darwish

Are an Armenian," says the Turk with the handgun. "I am." "Where are you going?" "Damascus." "Why?" "My sister lives there." "What do you do?" "I'm an engineer. I'm working on the Baghdad Railway - the spur from Aleppo to Nusaybin." "The British have captured Nasiriyah." "I hadn't heard that." He nods. "Had you heard that an Armenian murdered a Turkish — Chris Bohjalian

Who was Vardan Mamikonian, and how did he come to play this most crucial role in Armenian history? It may justifiably be said that without his committed leadership, the term "Armenian" today might have referred to no more than an obscure, one-time, Christian people of long past. — Arra Avakian

You can talk about Holocaust denial, but it's really marginal for the most part. What is compelling about the Armenian genocide, is how it has been forgotten. — Atom Egoyan

The Armenian Genocide is such a controversial and very sensitive issue because the Turkish and Armenian people disagree about the facts of what actually happened. I know how strongly Armenians feel about the Genocide, and how it's never been recognised. At the same time, I do not hold today's generation of people accountable. — Khloe Kardashian

an appointment with a local property tycoon who got into trouble with some Armenian gang members because he didn't want to pay them — L.J. Shen

No actions by gangs or individuals can justify the deaths of eight hundred thousand people. — Taner Akcam

The Armenian genocide was also a Holocaust, but it wasn't my Holocaust. — Edgar Hilsenrath

It is simply in the nature of Armenian to study, to learn, to question, to speculate, to discover, to invent, to revise, to restore, to preserve, to make, and to give. — William, Saroyan

In April, 1915, the Ottoman Government began to put into execution throughout Turkey a systematic and carefully-prepared plan to exterminate the Armenian race. In six months nearly a million Armenians have been killed. The number of victims and the manner of their destruction are without parallel in Modern History. — Herbert Adams Gibbons

My lady had the body of a siren, the face of a goddess, and the mind of an Armenian camel dealer. — Louis L'Amour

The eyes of the Armenians speak long before the lips move and long after they cease to. — Arshile Gorky

It is generally not known in the world that, in the years preceding 1916, there was a concerted effort made to eliminate all the Armenian people, probably one of the greatest tragedies that ever befell any group. And there weren't any Nuremberg trials. — Jimmy Carter

The AXA and New York Life settlements are important building blocks not only toward seeking financial recovery for the losses resulting from the Armenian Genocide but also in our ultimate goal, which is for Turkey and the US to officially acknowledge the genocide. — Mark Geragos

[In response to atrocities against Armenians] the British government issued a joint memo with France and Russia on 24 May 1915. The first draft, proposed by Russia, contained the phrase "crimes against Christianity and civilization," but France and Britain feared this would offend their own colonial Muslim populations and succeeded in changing the phrase to "crimes against humanity." This paved the way for the concept to assume its place after the war as one of the most important categories in international law. — Taner Akcam

But I am Armenian and I understand what it is to lose a country and lose a family and have massacres and genocides and everything against my people. — Andrea Martin

A woman telling her true age is like a buyer confiding his final price to an Armenian rug dealer. — Mignon McLaughlin

The Armenian alphabet is shredded lace
squiggly, feathery and mysterious. More elongated than Arabic, more elegant than Cyrillic. — Laura Kelly

The Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the war.. — Theodore Roosevelt

I'm Armenian, but I'm very fair and I look white ... I would always get such hate about it. — Khloe Kardashian

I always have mini bottles of Unbreakable, the fragrance I did with my husband. I'm Armenian, so I'm oily and always have blotting papers. — Khloe Kardashian

Never underestimate the power of good but never ignore evil lurking in the hearts of men.
Rose of Life — Sonia Rumzi

Armenian is the language to speak with God. — Lord Byron

I was raised with a huge Armenian influence, always hearing stories of Armenia, celebrating Armenian holidays. — Kim Kardashian

she's part Armenian, — Dahlia Adler

In general, those who resort to mass murder on a collective scale always put forward the justification that they acted on behalf of the nation. — Taner Akcam

Harout Pamboukjian is one of the biggest Armenian folk singers in the world. In the '70s, he was making these records that were really Zeppelin-influenced. — Serj Tankian

The Armenian genocide was a horrific illustration of the convulsions that could seize a multi-ethnic polity trying to mutate from empire into nation state. — Niall Ferguson

Go ahead, kill without mercy. After all, who remembers today the Armenian Genocide? — Adolf Hitler

My uncle Khosrove became very irritated and shouted, It's no harm. What is the loss of a horse? Haven't we all lost the homeland? What is this crying over a horse? — William, Saroyan

It's time to recognise the Armenian Genocide. — Kim Kardashian

Before the First World War, in many places military officers who had not taken part directly in operations became liable one way or another under the jurisprudence and military law of their own countries. But the question of prosecuting the political authorities--the people who ran the country--had not yet been considered. Calls during the war to hold the Ottoman political elite and the German kaiser personally responsible for the Armenian massacres and to prosecute them on those grounds heralded a turning point. From that point on, personal responsibility and prosecution--even of those in the political sphere--became one of the most important principles of international law. — Taner Akcam

The few surviving Armenians no longer ask to go home. They do not ask for restitution. They ask simply to have the memory of their obliteration acknowledged. It is a moral obsession, the lonely legacy passed onto the third and fourth generation who no longer speak Armenian but who carry within them the seeds of resentment that will not be quashed. — Chris Hedges

In those days you could identify a person's nationality by smell. Lying on her back with eyes closed, Desdemona could detect the telltale oniony aroma of a Hungarian woman on her right, and the raw-meat smell of an Armenian on her left. (And they, in turn, could peg Desdemona as a Hellene by her aroma of garlic and yogurt.) — Jeffrey Eugenides

If Turkey is prepared to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, then its leaders can proceed immediately to direct dialogue with its counterparts in Armenia to define a common vision for the future. — Mark Foley

All I can say is that there is indeed a crisis here. We cannot speak to one another in a meaningful way, every one of us is a leader, a general of the army, a king, a president, the greatest thinker of all time, and so on and so forth. This is the curse of the Armenian race. — William, Saroyan

I'm no Armenian. I'm an American. Well, the truth is I am both and neither. I love Armenia and I love America and I belong to both, but I am only this: an inhabitant of the earth, and so are you, whoever you are. I tried to forget Armenia but I couldn't do it. — William, Saroyan

I'm half-Armenian. Even though my grandparents did not discuss the genocide, and my father - like many sons and daughters of immigrants - wanted to be as 'American' as possible, I was always aware of it. How could I not be? — Chris Bohjalian

We didn't deny the obvious,
but we didn't entirely accept it either.
I mean, we said hello to it each morning
in the foyer. We patted its little head
as it made a mess in the backyard,
but we never nurtured it. Many nights the obvious showed up
at our bedroom door, in its pajamas,
unable to sleep, in need of a hug,
and we just stared at it like an Armenian,
or even worse - hid beneath the covers
and pretended not to hear its tiny sobs. — Jeffrey McDaniel

I am Armenian, so of course I am obsessed with laser hair removal! Arms, bikini, legs, underarms ... my entire body is hairless. — Kim Kardashian

God gave Moses a calendar that began in spring. (Ex 12:2) God Himself emphasized the importance of Israel's new calendar at Ex 23:16; Le 23:34 and De 16:13. God's calendar was for marking, and keeping, God's holy days. Using a foreign calendar became illegal. Ignoring Israel's new calendar could cost an Israelite their life. (Nu 15:32-35)
Yet, the Jewish calendar is not the only calendar. There are plenty of calendars to choose from: Assyrian; Egyptian; Iranian; Armenian; Ethiopian; Hindu; Coptic; Mayan; Chinese; Julian; Byzantine; Islamic and Gregorian; just to mention a few. Has the Seventh Day Adventists settled on any one of these calendars? Which one?
pg 5 — Michael Ben Zehabe

Perfidy and brutal force thwarted opportunities for calling President Wilson's Arbitral Award to life. Nevertheless, its significance is not to be underestimated: through that decision the aspiration of the Armenian people for the lost Motherland had obtained vital and legal force. — Serzh Sargsyan

We are confident that the normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations can become the greatest input of the recent decades in achieving peace and stability in the South Caucasus. With this vision, we have agreed to move forward without any preconditions, not making our relations contingent upon Turkey's recognition of the Armenian Genocide. However, if, as many suspect, it is proven that Turkey's goal is to protract, rather than to normalize relations, we will have to discontinue the process. — Serzh Sargsyan

Although I write in English, and despite the fact that I'm from America, I consider myself an Armenian writer. The words I use are in English, the surroundings I write about are American, but the soul, which makes me write, is Armenian. This means I am an Armenian writer and deeply love the honor of being a part of the family of Armenian wrtiters. — William, Saroyan

It was measured that the splinters of the Armenian nation that had managed to miraculously escape the Genocide would not be able to recover from the blow, would disappear in the whirlpools on five continents, lose their national identity, and aptitude to be a political factor. But we, as a nation and as a state, were able to reappear at the international arena to affirm that we continue our eternal journey and that we are determined not to allow for such a crime to ever happen again. — Serzh Sargsyan

The Armenian language cannot be worn out; its boots are stone. Well, certainly, the thick-walled words, the layers of air in the semi-vowels. — Osip Mandelstam

I am ashamed of my nation. — Djemal Pasha

From May until October, the Ottoman Government pursued methodically a plan of extermination far more hellish than the worst possible massacre. Orders for deportation of the entire Armenian population to Mesopotamia were dispatched to every province of Asia Minor. These orders were explicit and detailed. No hamlet was too insignificant to be missed. The news was given by town criers that every Armenian was to be ready to leave at a certain hour for an unknown destination. — Herbert Adams Gibbons

But then what is the alternative to trying to tell the truth about the Holocaust, the Famine, the Armenian genocide, the injustice of dispossession in the Americas and Australia? That everyone should be reduced to silence? To pretend that the Holocaust was the work merely of a well-armed minority who didn't do as much harm as is claimed-and likewise, to argue that the Irish Famine was either an inevitability or the fault of the Irish-is to say that both were mere unreliable rumors, and not the great motors of history they so obviously proved to be. It suited me to think so at the time, but still I believe it to be true, that if there are going to be areas of history which are off-bounds, then in principle we are reduced to fudging, to cosmetic narrative. — Thomas Keneally

Moe was a triple threat."
"He could sing, dance, and act?"
She shook her head. "He could speak Armenian, saddle break a stallion, and pass for a female in drag. — Marisha Pessl

[Armenian] is a rich language, however, and would amply repay any one the trouble of learning it. — Lord Byron

What brought me to the theater, no matter you're a Jew or a Russian or Armenian or Latvian, are suddenly illuminated by stage light and one beautiful image of dance. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

When I was younger, I was listening to a lot of Armenian music, you know, revolutionary music about freedom and protest. In the 70s I was listening to soul and the Bee Gees and ABBA, and funk. — Serj Tankian

I felt this beauty rather strangely. It was not desire, nor ecstacy, nor enjoyment that Masha
excited in me, but a painful though pleasant sadness. It was a sadness vague and undefined
as a dream. For some reason I felt sorry for myself, for my grandfather and for the
Armenian, even for the girl herself, and I had a feeling as though we all four had lost
something important and essential to life which we should never find again. — Anton Chekhov

Armenian folklore has it that three apples fell from Heaven: one for the teller of a story, one for the listener, and the third for the one who 'took it to heart.' What a pity Heaven awarded no apple to the one who wrote the story down. — Nancy Willard

If I was money-motivated, I wouldn't have joined a rock band with three other Armenian guys. — Daron Malakian

But the Dashnak Hairenik Weekly was merciless. Quoting the accounts of a few escapees, it depicted Soviet Armenian as a locus not just of economic misery, but moral degradation: Godlessness, Atheism, Immorality, Robbery and perpetual spying on one another! There is not a trace of our family sanctities left there. Having repudiated the idea of the existence of a God, the Bolshevik ignores every conception of family standards, every moral principle, every social order. Aram's wife or watch equally can belong to Hagop, Ali, or Stalin. There is no conception of nationality. A Kurd, a Caucasian, a Georgian, or a Turk have the right to become your son-in-law when they wish it. They have the right to divorce the very next day.26 — Thomas De Waal

The club survived though and became a symbol of hope and pride for over half a million refugees scattered across Azerbaijan, many of whom still live in temporary settlements within a few kilometers of the frontline. — Arthur Huizinga

This was a tragic event in human history, but by paying tribute to the Armenian community we ensure the lessons of the Armenian genocide are properly understood and acknowledged. — Jerry Costello

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is located within the Christian Quarter of the Old City adjacent to the maze of streets of the ancient Muristan district. Erected over the site many believed to be the true biblical Golgotha, the church in modern times is administered jointly by the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Armenian Apostolic Churches, and Neti had been able to secure nocturnal visitation rights for scientific study from the triumvirate. — Glenn Cooper

Russia demanded Armenian territories, very cleverly using long-standing, bitter fights between Armenians and Turks. — Ernst Kaltenbrunner

He was so depressed, he tried to commit suicide by inhaling next to an Armenian. — Woody Allen

Moreover, as the leadership of the House confirmed last year, the Administration remains opposed to a congressional resolution on the Armenian Genocide due to Turkish objections. This approach sends absolutely the wrong signal to Turkey and to the rest of the world. — Patrick J. Kennedy

The fallout caused by denial was inherited by later generations of Armenians, linking them to the fateful days of 1915, and compelling them to set the record straight. — Michael Bobelian

He was only thirty-eight. His body was clean, well-fed, and benign. He had all his teeth. A fresh Armenian joke stirred in his head like a child in its mother's womb. He thought life was wonderful. — Ilya Ilf

And then the Turkish gendarmes and zaptieh went from Armenian house to Armenian house confiscating weapons or anything they thought might be one. If possible, the priest would come to warn each family that the gendarmes or the zaptieh were coming so they could prepare. The zaptieh knocked on Armenian doors any time of day or night, and they preferred coming at night. They came to the Kazanjians, and the Arslanians, and the Meugerditchians, and to the Hovsepians and Haroutiunians and to the Shekerlemedjians. And finally, they came to our house in the evening after dinner. Three men in dark brown uniforms walked into the foyer and through the courtyard and said to my mother that if she did not hand over every gun in the house, we would be killed. — Peter Balakian

I bow down in memory of the victims, and I come to tell my Armenian friends that we will never forget the tragedies that your people has endured. — Francois Hollande

The Adoption When Paul Jobs was mustered out of the Coast Guard after World War II, he made a wager with his crewmates. They had arrived in San Francisco, where their ship was decommissioned, and Paul bet that he would find himself a wife within two weeks. He was a taut, tattooed engine mechanic, six feet tall, with a passing resemblance to James Dean. But it wasn't his looks that got him a date with Clara Hagopian, a sweet-humored daughter of Armenian immigrants. It was the fact that he and his friends had a car, unlike — Walter Isaacson

What a lonely and silly thing it is to be an Armenian writer in America. — William, Saroyan

Alas, the twentieth century alone, in which more than 50 million people were murdered by "civilized" government decrees - during Nazi Germany, the Armenian genocide, the Soviet regime, and so on - has proved how easy it is for good people to turn mass murderers.
... This reality - the human capacity, our capacity, for evil - should not distance us from those who commit atrocities. Quite the contrary, it should remind us of a fine line: if not for some grace, there go we. — Baz Dreisinger

Of the 2,000,000 Armenians in Turkey in 1914, one million have been slaughtered, and the survivors only 130,000 remain in Turkey and the rest are refugees and exiles. Armenian property losses are valued at over 5,000,000,000 dollars are more than three fourths of the estimated wealth of the Armenian race. — Herbert Adams Gibbons

Speaker, with mixed emotions we mark the 50th anniversary of the Turkish genocide of the Armenian people. In taking notice of the shocking events in 1915, we observe this anniversary with sorrow in recalling the massacres of Armenians and with pride in saluting those brave patriots who survived to fight on the side of freedom during World War I. — Gerald R. Ford

At least forty million Americans can't read and write, according to this morning's New York Times. That is six times as many illiterates as there are people of Armenian descent anywhere! So many of them and so few of us! — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

800,000 Armenian deportees were actually killed ... by holding the guilty accountable the government is intent on cleansing the bloody past. — Djemal Pasha

Other human rights atrocities from African slavery to the killing fields of Cambodia, the Armenian and Rwandan Genocides are all of course to be remembered, but diluting their particularity or comparing degrees of evil does no good. — Jeremy Corbyn

The first genocide of the 21st century was against you, the Armenian people. — Pope Francis

Like a child in new boots leaping from puddle to puddle, this view sees history as leapfrogging from one bloodbath to the next, from World War One to World War Two to the Cold War, from the Armenian genocide to the Jewish genocide to the Rwandan genocide, from Robespierre to Lenin to Hitler. — Yuval Noah Harari

Adolf von Gordon's last words at the trial are ironic: I should be far from passing a final judgment on Talat the man. What can be said objectively I said at the start. But I do wish to state one more thing: like many of his comrades, he certainly worked for the extermination of the Armenian people in order to create a purely pan-Turkish state; he certainly here used means that seem intolerable to us Europeans. — Eric Bogosian

The Armenian genocide showed what could happen when empires were beaten into nations. — Niall Ferguson

The Crusaders come to one immediate decision. They decide that the Orthodox Greek Christians, the Georgian Christians, the Armenian Christians and the Jacobite Christians no longer could hold services in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Only the Latin rite could be celebrated in Jerusalem. — Paul L. Williams

The legacy of the Armenian Genocide is woven into the fabric of America. — Adam Schiff

I found a greater identity with my own emotions in the Armenian culture as I grew older, as well as from the beginning, although I didn't know anything about it. — Alan Hovhaness

In a report dated 20 February 1894, French ambassador Paul Cambon describes a high-ranking Turkish official telling him that "the Armenian question does not exist, but we shall create it. — Taner Akcam

And I realized more and more that the Armenian story was not so much one of massacre and persecution, as survival. — Philip Marsden

From that high up, language or the lack of it didn't matter much. The swirling currents of people were way better than anything on TV. Even on cable. Except, possibly, the Armenian Channel. — Julia Claiborne Johnson