Quotes & Sayings About Holy War

Quite clearly, Europe had come apart and millions had died not because of the shifting of great historical forces or the accidents of fate or destiny, the several bullets of Sarajevo, colonial competition, or anything else. It was because Orfeo had slipped from his seat in the office of the attorney Giuliani and been carried upon the flood, like a corked bottle full of shit, until he had lodged upon a platform at the Ministry of War, where his feverish hand and only half-innocent imagination had been directing the machinery of nations in homage to the exalted one and the holy blessed sap. — Mark Helprin

Sir, if you are as powerful as I feel that you are, and as inclined toward us as you seem to be, endeavor to do something for us, so that we might do something for ourselves. We are ready, sir; are angry, are capable, our hopes are coiled up so tight as to be deadly, or holy: turn us loose, sir, let us at it, let us show what we can do.

--thomas havens — George Saunders

It is your attitude, and the suspicion that you are maturing the boldest designs against him, that imposes on your enemy. — Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

There is no holy life. There is no war between good and evil. There is no sin and no redemption. None of these things matter to the real you. But they all matter hugely to the false you, the one who believes in the separate self. You have tried to take your separate self, with all its loneliness and anxiety and pride, to the door of enlightenment. But it will never go through, because it is a ghost. — Deepak Chopra

True holy war in human history has ceased because Jesus has fought its last episode on the cross. — Karen H. Jobes

When they killed him, Mother wouldn't hold her peace, so they slit her throat. I was stupid then, being only nine, and I fought to save them both. But the thorns held me tight. I've learned to appreciate thorns since. The thorns taught me the game. They let me understand what all those grim and serious men who've fought the Hundred War have yet to learn. You can only win the game when you understand that it IS a game. Let a man play chess, and tell him that every pawn is his friend. Let him think both bishops holy. Let him remember happy days in the shadows of his castles. Let him love his queen. Watch him loose them all. — Mark Lawrence

Whoever devotedly undertakes and performs this most holy journey ... shall have the enjoyment of eternal reward from the repayer of all men. — Pope Eugene III

Only in war are you holy, and when you are robbers and cruel. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Widespread criticisms of jihad in Islam and the so-called sword verses in the Quran have unearthed for fair-minded Christians difficult questions about Christianity's own traditions of holy war and 'texts of terror.' Like Hinduism's Mahabharata epic, the Bible devotes entire books to war and rumors thereof. Unlike the Quran, however, it contains hardly any rules for how to conduct a just war. — Stephen R. Prothero

If there is a God, the phrase that must disgust him is - holy war. — Steve Allen

The wars of Israel were the only 'holy wars' in history ... there can be no more wars of faith. The only way to overcome our enemy is by loving him. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The cause didn't seem sacred to her. The war did not seem to be holy affair. — Margaret Mitchell

Insurrection: Insurrection as soon as circumstances allow: insurrection, strenuous, ubiquitous: the insurrection of the masses: the holy war of the oppressed: the republic to make republicans: the people in action to initiate progress. Let the insurrection announce with its awful voice the decrees of God: let it clear and level the ground on which its own immortal structure shall be raised. Let it, like the Nile, flood all the country that it is destined to make fertile. — Giuseppe Mazzini

A holy war is a contradiction in terms. War dehumanizes, war diminishes, war debases all those who wage it. — Elie Wiesel

Successive American presidents have turned a blind eye to piles of evidence that Saudi money is being used to foment holy war against America. — Stephen Kinzer

Al-Qa'idah was set up to wage a jihad against infidelity, particularly to encounter the onslaught of the infidel countries against the Islamic states. Jihad is the sixth undeclared element of Islam. The first five being the basic holy words of Islam, prayers, fast, pilgrimage to Mecca, and giving alms Every anti-Islamic person is afraid of it. Al-Qa'idah wants to keep this element alive and active and make it part of the daily life of the Muslims. It wants to give it the status of worship. We are not against any Islamic country nor we consider a war against an Islamic country as jihad. — Osama Bin Laden

See it's easy as cake, simple as whistling Dixie
While I'm waving the pistol at sixty Christians against me
Go to war with the Mormons, take a bath with the Catholics
In holy water, no wonder they tried to hold me under longer. — Eminem

Part of Sykes's motive was rooted in religiosity. A devout Catholic, he regarded a return of the ancient tribe of Israel to the Holy Land as a way to correct
a nearly two-thousand-year-old wrong. That view had taken on new passion and
urgency with the massacres of the Armenians. To Sykes, in that ongoing atrocity, the Ottoman Empire had proven it could never again be trusted to protect
its religious minority populations. At war's end, the Christian and Jewish Holy
Land of Palestine would be taken from it, and the failure of the Crusades made
right. — Scott Anderson

What passing bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifle's rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers, nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells,
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes,
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall,
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each, slow dusk a drawing down of blinds. — Wilfred Owen

Every war results from the struggle for markets and spheres of influence, and every war is sold to the public by professional liars and totally sincere religious maniacs, as a Holy Crusade to save God and Goodness from Satan and Evil. — Robert Anton Wilson

I have an opinion about holy war, which in general I must keep to myself. I have no wish to be known as a heretic. It is ... that if a war can be holy, then God cannot. At best a war can only be necessary. — Louis De Bernieres

I love you more than life itself, Arodi, you mean everything to me. I'm lost without you. I swear by all that is holy and sacred to me that I will never leave you, and I won't die on you. I'm never going to leave you alone. — C.N. Faust

Gotta keep an eye on those terrorist polar bears, and make sure Santa's elves aren't planning a holy war. — Graham McNamee

Either we obey God's will who does not kill, or we make our own God's who allow us to make holy wars — Elias Chacour

This is not the true meaning of jihad," he spoke into the starless dark. "Jihad is the holy war we have within ourselves. That is the meaning below the surface. Our internal struggle for purity," he said with emphasis, pressing his forefinger into his chest. "It is the war of ascendance over our basal instincts. It has absolutely nothing to do with others. The only thing we can have control over is ourselves. — Camilla Gibb

Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain with death - the seas bear only commerce - men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world lies quietly at peace. The holy mission has been completed. And in reporting this to you, the people, I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever stilled among the jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific which marked the way. — Douglas MacArthur

The war in Congo rages on with no end in sight," the announcer said. "And now comes word of a new campaign by the soldiers, to find the women they have already raped and re-rape them." "Holy Christ on a cross!" Mom said. "I draw the line at re-raping." And she turned off NPR. — Maria Semple

If sacred places are spared the ravages of war ... then make all places sacred. And if the holy people are to be kept harmless from war ... then make all people holy. — J. Michael Straczynski

I make war on the living, not the dead. — Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

The aforesaid disagreement between these men sprang from a misunderstanding. And the cause of it is that each thinks he is better than the other, when as a matter of fact there is no real difference between them except perhaps some trifling variation in the manner of wearing their hair. Each maintains that his country is in some way more holy than the other's, though in strict reality France and Germany are exactly the same country, and no one in full possession of his faculties can possibly see any difference between them. — Halldor Laxness

But the state had no jurisdiction over the conscience of the individual and no right, therefore, to fight heresy or lead a holy war. While it could have nothing to do with the spiritual realm, the state must have unqualified and absolute authority in temporal affairs. Even if the state were cruel, tyrannical, and forbade the teaching of God's word, Christians must not resist its power.37 For its part, the true church, the Kingdom of God, must hold aloof from the inherently corrupt and depraved policies of the Kingdom of the World, dealing only with spiritual affairs. Protestants believed that the Roman Church had failed in its true mission because it had dallied with the sinful Kingdom of the World. — Karen Armstrong

If ever there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and gave us independence. — Thomas Jefferson

Probably no one of us has the True Religion. But all of us together - if we are allowed to be free - are discovering ways of conversing about the great mysteries. The pretense to know all the answers to the deepest mysteries is, of course, the grossest fraud. And any people who declare a Jihad, a holy war on unbelievers - those who do not share their believers' pretended omniscience - are enemies of thinking men and woman and of civilization. I see religion as only a way of asking unanswerable questions, of sharing the joy of a community of quest, and solacing one another in our ignorance. — Daniel J. Boorstin

It's not a religion, it's a relationship!'
Without the religion, without the archaic and flawed holy texts, there wouldn't be anything for you to manufacture a 'relationship' with. Without the wars and forced conversions key to the religion's spread across the globe, it may have died out long ago like so many others have. If that were the case, you wouldn't know the characters of Jesus or God or Muhammad or any of the tales and myths associated with a particular faith. Religions concern themselves with preserving and worshiping these myths as realities, without regard to substantial evidence to the contrary. — David G. McAfee

Banks are the temples of America. This is a holy war. Our economy is our religion. — Giannina Braschi

K.T. stops dead in her tracks, her eyes locked on Horace's car.
"Holy crap," she mutters, eyes wide. "Is that a '69 Camaro SS?"
I glance back at her as I unlock the door. "Yeah. You know cars?"
She shakes her head, her lips trembling. "Just this one."
Her reaction is too strong to be normal. People don't usually get choked up at the sight of a car. There's something about this car specifically that freaks her out.
It takes a second for her to smile, but she forces the expression onto her face. "It's my sister's favorite car. — Erica Cameron

Nations like the Cuban and the Swiss
Can never hope to wage a Global Mission.
No Holy Wars for them. The most the small
Can ever give us is a nuisance brawl. — Robert Frost

Was raised on the Torah, my wife on the Qu'Ran, my eldest son is an Atheist, my youngest is a scientologist, my daughter is studying Hinduism, I imagine there is room there for a holy war in my living room, but we practice live and let live. — Jerome Bixby

Some only follow the holy man while others only follow the warlord. But the truth is, both sides are within all of us, and if people could only see that, they wouldn't have to wear masks, or pretend to be holy like a holy man, or pretend that nothing can hurt them like a warlord. They could just be themselves, unjudged. — A.J. Darkholme

I believe that people are holy because they're made in the image of God, and a place can be holy when God is present - but no place is so holy that it's worth shedding the blood of those who bear the image of God. — Jared Brock

I think there should be holy war against yoga classes. — Werner Herzog

I must accept my Father's loving help in resisting and overcoming. Sin is like an octopus with many tentacles trying to crush out my life. Seldom do all tentacles loosen their hold on me at once. It is one tentacle at a time. In this war against sin, it is a victory won through one soldier dying at a time. Seldom does the entire enemy army fall dead at a single blast. It is hand-to-hand combat. It is one small victory at a time. But God doesn't send me out to do battle without a war plan. He is my Commander; I will fight - inch by inch, hour by hour - under His direction. He dispatches the Holy Spirit to me, with clear directions on how to fight, when to run, where to strike next. This battle against principalities and powers is His — David Wilkerson

Without supplies no army is brave. — Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

If the instigation for jihad [holy war] against the Jews and the Americans ... is considered a crime, then let history be a witness that I am a criminal. — Osama Bin Laden

Almost all religions provide opportunities for human beings to convince themselves of their own righteousness, to speak in the name of God, and even to go to war on God's behalf. This 'blasphemy of certainty' is also rife among secularists who in their case have not God but science or the proletariat on their side. — Stephen R. Prothero

It's one thing to make war for your country, your family, even in pursuit of glory. It's another to believe that the people you fight are embodiments of evil and must be destroyed for that. I want this peninsula back. I want Esperana great again, but I will not pretend that if we smash Al- Rassan and all it has built we are doing the will of any god I know. — Guy Gavriel Kay

Baptism was recruitment into that supernatural holy war that reiterated the waters of the Flood cleansing unholiness and evil from the individual's life, in preparation for a new messianic world. But in the case of Jesus, it was much more. When Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit had come upon him, which was foretold by Isaiah the prophet, Behold my Servant, whom I uphold, my Chosen One, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. — Brian Godawa

So here we have found a means of a) alienating even the most flexible and patient Palestinians; while b) frustrating the efforts of the more principled and compromising Israelis; while c) empowering and financing some of the creepiest forces in American and Israeli society; and d) heaping ordure on our own secular founding documents. When will the Justice Department and the Congress and the Supreme Court become aware of this huge and rank offense, which is designed to bring us ever nearer to holy war? — Christopher Hitchens

They were told they were on a holy mission and that their country would remember them. Now people turn away and try to forget the war, especially those who sent us there in the first place. — Svetlana Alexievich

Passages in the Bible and Quran or Hadiths endorse holy war, subjugating or exterminating unbelievers, killing blasphemers and others who violate religious taboos, stoning adulterers, ritually slaughtering animals, sexually enslaving females, and beating children. They prescribe mutilation of criminal suspects. — Anonymous

We can love religion as we need rituals, but The Holy Spirit is a bird, free to fly and land where it likes. We don't actually need 'religion' in order to have a relationship with The Holy Spirit. Too many wars an violence over religion.We need to see it's all the same spirit and we are part of that spirit so we shouldn't be fighting over what name we call it. It's a free bird. — Sinead O'Connor

As for national greatness: It is probably true that all nations are great and even holy at the time of death. The Biafrans had never fought before. They fought well this time. They will never fight again. They will never play Finlandia on an ancient marimba again. Peace. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

When breeders are sluts for enjoying the act, and in pain, while the males are made heroic for all such conquests, we achieve detente in the war between the genders. Confuse, conquer, and control, my son. This rape culture, coupled with the holy trinity of blame, shame and guilt, makes for a yeasty culture of manipulation. — Nicole Quinn

And in the end, bin Laden died in a squalid suburban compound surrounded by his wives and children and far from the front lines of his holy war. — Peter L. Bergen

The time for princes and tsars and grand duchesses and especially holy madmen was gone. In its place came a world of war and revolution, of tanks and telephones, of murder and assassination. The bear had already become what it had been waiting to be, and the men who set it on its journey changed too. Lev became Trotsky, Vladimir took the name Lenin, and they stepped into a bright and furious modern world; blood red, and snow white. — Marcus Sedgwick

The call to "take the land" ... is not a call to a new political, cultural or geographical dominance. It is Kingdom of God territory. It is the will of the Eternal God being done on earth, as it is in heaven. — Ken Baker

We know the story of the Deluge from the Holy Scripture. Why did the first race of men come to such a tragic end? Because they had abandoned God and must die, guilty and innocent alike. They had only themselves to blame for their punishment. And it is the same today. — Wilm Hosenfeld

We were to be forever at war with somebody. We were going to fight communism everywhere on earth even if it didn't threaten us. It was a holy war, just as we've made one on terrorism and Islam, equally stupid and equally irrelevant. — Gore Vidal

If you are on God's side, then God is on your side. God will fight for you as you fight for Him. And you can live with holy confidence, knowing that when God is contending for your cause, your cause is destined to succeed. This doesn't mean there won't be setbacks and sacrifices along the way; it just means the war has already been won. — Mark Batterson

Many critics of the Crusades would seem to suppose that after the Muslims had overrun a major portion of Christendom, they should have been ignored or forgiven; suggestions have been made about turning the other cheek. This outlook is certainly unrealistic and probably insincere. Not only had the Byzantines lost most of their empire; the enemy was at their gates. And the loss of Spain, Sicily, and southern Italy, as well as a host of Mediterranean islands, was bitterly resented in Europe. Hence, as British historian Derek Lomax (1933-1992) explained, 'The popes, like most Christians, believed war against the Muslims to be justified partly because the latter had usurped by force lands which once belonged to Christians and partly because they abused the Christians over whom they ruled and such Christian lands as they could raid for slaves, plunder and the joys of destruction.' It was time to strike back. — Rodney Stark

The American intellectuals, in their preoccupation with reality, seem to have forgotten that the real enemy is War rather than imperial Germany. There is work to be done to prevent this war of ours from passing into popular mythology as a holy crusade. What shall we do with leaders who tell us that we go to war in moral spotlessness or who make "democracy" synonymous with a republican form of government? — Randolph Bourne

We know Jesus taught that if someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to the left. We know that Mohammed was sacked from his village and stoned at Ta'if, but he quietly left for Medina.
If both of these men, beaten, and bloodied-the incarnations of their respective faiths-asked God to forgive their aggressors, then who were today's religious leaders to advocate holy war? — Eliza Griswold

Holy shit. I'm a Smurf. — Erica Cameron

Look into the face of a man who will kill you for a belief and your nostrils will snuff up the scent of abomination. Hear a speech declaring a holy war and, I assure you, your ears should catch the clink of evil's scales and the dragging of its monstrous tail over the purity of the language. — Terry Pratchett

Some of those drawn into the holy war had been secular nationalists only a few years before. If one looks at the biographies of these people, remarkable continuities are revealed. — Jurgen Habermas

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy? — Mahatma Gandhi

I found myself thinking that the Quran is not a holy document. It is a historical record, written by humans. It is one version of events, as perceived by the men who wrote it 150 years after the Prophet Muhammad died. And it is a very tribal and Arab version of events. It spreads a culture that is brutal, bigoted, fixated on controlling women, and harsh in war. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Holy War is a contradiction of terms ... — Elie Wiesel

Many people in Europe and the U.S. dispute the thesis that we are living through a clash of civilisations between Islam and the west. But a radical minority of Muslims firmly believes that Islam is under siege, and is committed to winning the holy war it has declared against the West. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Even a child could see the division between what the Galileans [i.e., Christians] say they believe and what, in fact, they do believe, as demonstrated by their actions. A religion of brotherhood and mildness which daily murders those who disagree with its doctrines can only be thought hypocrite, or worse. — Gore Vidal

Everything is touched by the holy when it is in the presence of death. — Karl Marlantes

If one does not have the basic conscientious capacity to refute the primitive textual verses of the scriptures that demand one to kill or torture another being for holding a different belief system than one's own, then that entity is no being of the civilized human society, it is merely a pest from the stone-age. — Abhijit Naskar

We are split people. For myself, half of me wishes to sit quietly with legs crossed, letting the things that are beyond my control wash over me. But the other half wants to fight a holy war. Jihad! And certainly we could argue this out in the street, but I think, in the end, your past is not my past and your truth is not my truth and your solution
it is not my solution. So I do not know what it is you would like me to say. Truth and firmness is one suggestion, though there are many people you can ask if that answer does not satisfy. Personally, my hope lies in the last days. The prophet Muhammad
peace be upon Him!
tells us that on the Day of Resurrection everyone will be struck unconscious. Deaf and dumb. No chitchat. Tongueless. And what a bloody relief that will be. — Zadie Smith

I am Emir Dynamite!" he shouted, swaying on top of the tall camelback. "If within two days we don't get any decent food, I'll incite the tribes to revolt! I swear! I will appoint myself the Prophet's representative and declare holy war, jihad. On Denmark, for example. Why did the Danes torment their Prince Hamlet? Considering the current political situation, a casus beli like this would satisfy even the League of Nations. No, seriously, I'll buy a million worth of rifles from the British
they love to sell firearms to the tribes
and onward to Denmark. Germany will let us through
in lieu of war reparations. Imagine the tribes invading Copenhagen! I'll lead the charge on a white camel. — Ilya Ilf

These warriors of the Sacred Band were inscrutable; they loved their war and death and picking through the bones of time to sort out right from wrong, good from bad, holy from profane, honor from dishonor. — Janet Morris

The Lebanese civil war was not between the Lebanese; it was a holy war declared on the Christians. — Brigitte Gabriel

That both Muslim fundamentalists and the Christian right are today focusing their attempts to regain control in a rapidly changing world on frantic efforts to maintain control over women, particularly over women's sexuality. Moreover, given their mythologies about "holy wars," it is also understandable that they should use "divinely approved" violence to do so ... — Riane Eisler

Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies! But beautiful as songs of the immortals, The holy melodies of love arise. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There are no bystanders in a dharmayudh - it is a holy war. — Amish Tripathi

That image of Joan of Arc burning up in a fire burned inside me like a new religion. Her face skyward. Her faith muscled up like a holy war. And always the voice of a father in her head. Like me. Jesus. What is a thin man pinned to wood next to the image of a burning woman warrior ablaze? I took the image of a burning woman into my heart and left belief to the house of father forever. — Lidia Yuknavitch

A defensive war is apt to betray us into too frequent detachment. Those generals who have had but little experience attempt to protect every point, while those who are better acquainted with their profession, having only the capital object in view, guard against a decisive blow, and acquiesce in small misfortunes to avoid greater. — Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

Is it a small thing to quench the flames of hell with the holy tears of pity
to unbind the martyr from the stake
break all the chains
put out the fires of civil war
stay the sword of the fanatic, and tear the bloody hands of the Church from the white throat of Science?
Is it a small thing to make men truly free
to destroy the dogmas of ignorance, prejudice and power
the poisoned fables of superstition, and drive from the beautiful face of the earth the fiend of fear? — Robert G. Ingersoll

'Jihad' can mean holy war to extremists, but it means struggle to the average Muslim. — Feisal Abdul Rauf

I'm well aware that millions of nominally Muslim freethinkers are in hiding out of necessity. This is one of the things I find so insufferable about the liberal backlash against critics of Islam - especially the pernicious meme "Islamophobia," by which anyone who thinks Islam merits special concern at this moment in history is branded a bigot. What worries me is that so many moderate Muslims believe that "Islamophobia" is a bigger problem than literalist Islam is. They seem more outraged that someone like me would equate jihad with holy war than that millions of their co-religionists do this and commit atrocities as a result. — Sam Harris

Rascals, do you want to live forever? — Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

I declare a holy war, my Moslem brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all. — Haj Amin Al-Husseini

This [Magna Carta] has been forced from the King. It constitutes an insult to the Holy See, a serious weakening of the royal power, a disgrace to the English nation, a danger to all Christendom, since this civil war obstructs the crusade. Therefore?we condemn the charter and forbid the King to keep it, or the barons and their supporters to make him do so, on pain of excommunication. — Pope Innocent III

Aaron reached into his jacket pocket and took out his Bible, a gift from his father, Captain Benjamin K. Matthews, on the the day he had ridden off to war. Aaron opened to the Psalms, intending to read, but his eyes were heavy and closed against his will. O death, where is thy sting? Pastor Blackwell had told him that death had no power over him, but he sure felt that sting now. O grave, where is thy victory? How much longer would it be? Just four miles from home. Would Mama ever know?
Shiloh, the place of peace. Good ground to die on. Holy ground. — Karl A. Bacon

In the Crusades, getting the Holy Land back was the goal, and any means could be used to achieve it. World War II was a crusade. The firebombing of Tokyo by Doolittle and the carpet bombing in Germany, especially by the British, showed that. — Stanley Hauerwas

I don't believe in Western morality, i.e., don't kill civilians or children, don't destroy holy sites, don't fight during the holiday seasons, don't bomb cemeteries, and don't shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral. The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle) — Manis Friedman

What kind of victory is it when someone is left defeated? What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy. What is a war criminal? Was not war itself a crime against God and humanity, and, therefore, were not all those who sanctioned, engineered and conducted wars, war criminals? The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. Non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty. — Mahatma Gandhi

More than anything else, I think, Maddie went to war on behalf of the Holy Island seals. — Elizabeth Wein

We are foolish to expect to serve God without opposition: the more zealous we are, the more sure are we to be assailed ... Glory be to God, we know the end of the war. The great dragon shall be cast out and for ever destroyed, while Jesus and they who are with him shall receive the crown. Let us sharpen our swords to-night, and pray the Holy Spirit to nerve our arms for the conflict. Never battle so important, never crown so glorious. Every man to his post, ye warriors of the cross, and may the Lord tread Satan under your feet shortly! — Charles Spurgeon

It was apparent that both the Wazirs and the Mahsuds were building up a large lashkar (a gathering of hostile forces); the numbers were reported as about 1,000 armed men. This was the first occasion that I heard the word 'Jihud' mentioned; there are a number of interpretations given to it; in its simplest form it could be a holy war declared by Muslims on the unbelievers of Islam. — Michael Lowry

[Those who accept] the Americanized, Constantinian paradigm [say:] We are of God; they are of the Devil. We are the light; they are the darkness. Our wars are therefore "holy" wars. With all due respect, this is blatant idolatry. — Gregory A. Boyd

Every man that tried to destroy the Government, every man that shot at the holy flag in heaven, every man that starved our soldiers ... every man that wanted to burn the negro, every one that wanted to scatter yellow fever in the North, every man that opposed human liberty, that regarded the auction-block as an altar and the howling of the bloodhound as the music of the Union, every man who wept over the corpse of slavery, that thought lashes on the naked back were a legal tender for labour performed, every one willing to rob a mother of her child - every solitary one was a Democrat. — Robert Green Ingersoll

You know all about love, but that is not enough. You must also learn that hate comes from God as well, that it too is in the Lord's service. And in times like these, with the world fallen to the state it has, hate serves God more than love. — Nikos Kazantzakis

It is a neglected but essential fact that we cannot appreciate the relationship between religion and violence unless we grasp the nature and meaning of the two partners in this relationship. Yet our understandings both of religion and of violence are inadequate. Further, we usually consider too few offspring of their troubled marriage: when we think of "religious violence," we tend to think only of holy war and (especially since September 11) religious terrorism. However, those are not the only types of religious violence. — Jack David Eller

Issue a call to the young generation to get ready for the holy war and to prepare for that in Afghanistan because jihad in this time of crisis for Muslims is an obligation of all Muslims. — Osama Bin Laden

When I visited Guantanamo Bay several years ago, I met a team of psychiatrists treating the detainees. When I asked how they distinguished between, say, schizophrenia or bipolarity and a bedrock religious commitment to holy war, they couldn't answer. — Monica Crowley