Quotes & Sayings About Persecutions

The world is rather shot to pieces (end of World War II), 1945), but the spectators climb out of their caves and pretend to have again become normal and customary humans who ask each other's pardon instead of eating one another or sucking each other's blood. The entertaining folly of war evaporates, distinguished boredom sits down again on the dignified old overstuffed chairs ... May I report about myself that I have had a truly grotesque time, brim-full with work, Nazi persecutions, bombs, hunger, and again and again work - in spite of everything (using his bed sheets as canvas — Max Beckmann

In the Spanish people there is a mixture of Gothic, Frankish and Moorish blood. One can speak of the Spaniard as one would speak of a brave anarchist. The Arabian epoch-the Arabs look down on the Turks as they do on dogs-was the most cultured, the most intellectual and in every way best and happiest epoch in Spanish history. It was followed by the period of the persecutions with its unceasing atrocities. — Adolf Hitler

The early Church was birthed and sustained in almost constant persecution and pressures — Greg Gordon

Le silence est la plus grande perse cution: jamais les saints ne se sont tus. Silence is the greatest of all persecutions: no saint was ever silent. — Blaise Pascal

Therefore, we ourselves speak proudly of you among the churches of God for your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions which you endure.(2 Thessalonians 1:4 NASB) — Alexander

Look on the effect of your religions, those movements that have swept up millions with their fantastical
claims. Look at what they have done to human history. Look at the wars fought on account of them; look at
the persecutions, the massacres. Look at the pure enslavement of reason; look at the price of faith and zeal. — Anne Rice

I couldn't but surmise that the devil, looking at the cruel wars that Christianity has occasioned, the persecutions, the tortures Christian has inflicted on Christian, the unkindness, the hypocracy, the intolerance, must consider the balance sheet with complacency. And when he remembers that it has laid upon mankind the bitter burden of the sense of sin that has darkened the beauty of the starry night and cast a baleful shadow on the passing plesures of a world to be enjoyed, he must chuckle as he murmurs: give the devil his due. — W. Somerset Maugham

there would have been some idle persecutions here and there, a clash of ideas and egos, but by and large, for the duration that we were the richest and most wonderful of nations in the world, we were also the most tolerant. That tolerance is the fabric that weaved our different states, united our tongues . . . — R. Sreeram

Even as we slog through the trials, persecutions, irritations, temptations, distractions, apathy, and just plain weariness of this world, the gospel points us to heaven where our King Jesus - the Lamb of God who was crucified in our place and raised gloriously from the dead - now sits interceding for us. Not only so, but it calls us forward to that final day when heaven will be filled with the roaring noise of millions upon millions of forgiven voices hailing him as crucified Savior and risen King. — Greg Gilbert

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.

From Augustine down, theologians have tried to compel people to accept their special interpretation of the Scripture, and the tortures of the inquisition, the rack, the thumb-screw, the stake, the persecutions of witchcraft, the whipping of naked women through the streets of Boston, banishment, trials of heresy, the halter about Garrison's neck, Lovejoy's death, the branding of Captain Walker, shouts of infidel and atheist, have all been for this purpose. — Matilda Joslyn Gage

Surely as a man may say of a rock
nothing more quiet, because it is never stirred; and yet nothing more unquiet, because it is ever assaulted
so we may say of the church
nothing more peaceable, because it is established upon a rock; and yet nothing more unpeaceable, because that rock is in the midst of seas, winds, enemies, and persecutions. — Edward Reynolds

Government as well as religion has furnished its schisms, its persecutions and its devices for fattening idleness on the earnings of the people. — Thomas Jefferson

The biggest religious wars and persecutions in history occur when religions, each claiming their own absolute truths, come into conflict. — Susan Jacoby

The Catechism explained that praying for the souls of the dead is a tradition going back to the first Christians and to the Jews before them. On the walls of the catacombs, where the earliest Christians worshipped, there were scrawled prayers for friends who'd died during persecutions. The living sent their love for the deceased into the spiritual world, like adding water to a stream that would eventually float their lost friends home. — Jennifer Fulwiler

The fabled origin of the laurel is this. Daphne, daughter of the river Peneus, offended by the persecutions of Apollo, implored succour of the gods, who changed her into a laurel tree. Apollo crowned his head with the leaves and ordered that forever after, the tree should be sacred to him. — Dorothea Dix

29"I'll tell you the truth," replied Jesus. "No one who has left a house, or brothers or sisters, or mother or father, or children, or lands because of me and the gospel 30will fail to receive back a hundred times more in the present age: houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and lands - with persecutions! - and finally the life of the age to come. 31But plenty of people at the front will end up at the back, and the back at the front. — N. T. Wright

The very fears and guilts imposed by religious training are responsible for some of history's most brutal wars, crusades, pogroms, and persecutions, including five centuries of almost unimaginable terrorism under Europe's Inquisition and the unthinkably sadistic legal murder of nearly nine million women. History doesn't say much very good about God. — Barbara G. Walker

To be a Jew is to belong to an old harmless race that has lived in every country in the world; and that has enriched every country it has lived in.
"It is to be strong with a strength that has outlived persecutions. It is to be wise against ignorance, honest against piracy, harmless against evil, industrious against idleness, kind against cruelty! It is to belong to a race that has given Europe its religion; its moral law; and much of its science-perhaps even more of its genius-in art, literature and music.
"This is to be a Jew; and you know now what is required of you! You have no country but the world; and you inherit nothing but wisdom and brotherhood. I do not say there are no bad Jews-userers; cowards; corrupt and unjust persons-but such people are also to be found among Christians. I only say to you this is to be a good Jew. Every Jew has this aim brought before him in his youth. He refuses it at his peril; and at his peril he accepts it. — Phyllis Bottome

We are forced to fight a duel. We are forced by honour and an internal intellectual need. Do not, for your own sake, attempt to stop us. I know all the excellent and ethical things that you will want to say to us. I know all about the essential requirements of civil order: I have written leading articles about them all my life. I know all about the sacredness of human life; I have bored all my friends with it. Try and understand our position. This man and I are alone in the modern world in that we think that God is essentially important. I think He does not exist; that is where the importance comes in for me. But this man thinks that He does exist, and thinking that very properly thinks Him more important than anything else. Now we wish to make a great demonstration and assertion - something that will set the world on fire like the first Christian persecutions. If — G.K. Chesterton

Jews survived all the defeats, expulsions, persecutions and pogroms, the centuries in which they were regarded as a pariah people, even the Holocaust itself, because they never gave up the faith that one day they would be free to live as Jews without fear. — Jonathan Sacks

To be a Jew is to be strong with a strength that has outlived persecutions. It is to be wise against ignorance, honest against piracy, harmless against evil, kind against cruelty — Phyllis Bottome

I say unto you with all the soberness I can, that we stand in danger of losing our liberties, and that once lost, only blood will bring them back; and we of this church will, in order to keep the Church going forward, have more sacrifices to make, and more persecutions to endure than we have yet known. If the conspiracy comes here it will probably come in its full vigor and there will be a lot of vacant places among those who guide and direct, not only this government, but also this Church of ours. — J. Reuben Clark

Among all the religious persecutions with which almost every page of modern history is stained, no victim ever suffered but for violation of what Government denominated the law of God. To prevent a similar train of evils in this country, the Constitution has wisely withheld from our Government the power of defining the divine law. — Richard Mentor Johnson

The supernatural Christ of the New Testament, the god of orthodox Christianity, is dead. But priestcraft lives and conjures up the ghost of this dead god to frighten and enslave the masses of mankind. The name of Christ has caused more persecutions, wars, and miseries than any other name has caused. The darkest wrongs are still inspired by it. The wails of anguish that went up from Kishenev, Odessa, and Bialystok still vibrate in our ears. — John Remsburg

His readiness to undergo persecutions for his beliefs, the high moral character of the men who believed in him and looked up to him as leader, and the greatness of his ultimate achievement - all argue his fundamental integrity. To suppose Muhammad an impostor raises more problems than it solves. Moreover, none of the great figures of history is so poorly appreciated in the West as Muhammad — William Montgomery Watt

People who prefer to believe the worst of others will breed war and religious persecutions while the world lasts. — Dorothy L. Sayers

The Lord challenges us to suffer persecutions and to confess Him. He wants thiose who belong to him to be brave and fearless. He himself shows how weakness of the flesh is overcome by courage of the Spirit ... A christian is fearless. — Tertullian

Some places[/people] are like that: they can suffer through wars, persecutions, and indifference, but they still remain sacred. Finally someone comes along, senses that something is missing, and rebuilds them. — Paulo Coelho

The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done. — Joseph Smith Jr.

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. — Anonymous

It is only requisite for me to add that the doctrines which I commenced to preach some seven years since are as firmly believed by me as ever; and through persecutions have attended, and the rage and malice of men been heaped upon me, I feel equally as firm in the great and glorious cause as when first I received my mission from the holy messenger. — Oliver Cowdery

It has often been found that profuse expenditures, heavy taxation, absurd commercial restrictions, corrupt tribunals, disastrous wars, seditions, persecutions, conflagrations, inundation, have not been able to destroy capital so fast as the exertions of private citizens have been able to create it. — Thomas B. Macaulay

More Christians died for their faith at the hands of fellow Christians
than had died before in all the persecutions. — Ramsay MacMullen

Prayer cleanses from sin, drives away temptations, stamps out persecutions, comforts the fainthearted, gives new strength to the courageous, brings travellers safely home, calms the waves, confounds robbers, feeds the poor, overrules the rich, lifts up the fallen, supports those who are falling, sustains those who stand firm. — Tertullian

Afflictions, persecutions, imprisonments, and death, we must expect, according to the scriptures, which tell us that the blood of those whose souls were under the altar could not be avenged on them that dwell on the earth, until their brethren should be slain as they were. — Joseph Smith Jr.

The Catholic Inquisition is well-known for its persecutions, but the Protestants were no better. An infamous example of Protestant evil, an example given by Thomas Jefferson, is the execution of Michael Servetus. A Spanish physician, Servetus wrote that the doctrine of the Trinity makes no sense, that it contradicts the idea that there is only one God. Servetus was condemned to die by the Catholic Inquisition, but he wasn't present, so they couldn't kill him. He had fled to Protestant Switzerland, expecting to be protected there. Instead, the city leaders in Geneva, with the approval of John Calvin (one of the great fathers of Protestant thought) and other Protestant leaders across Europe, had Servetus burned alive (with green wood to give him longer to repent) in 1553. — Russ Kick

I wonder what could happen if self-confessed followers of Jesus surrendered our human powers, and our desires for power, and began to celebrate openly our human weakness in exchange for the experience of Christ as Power within us. What could happen if, for Christ's sake, we openly delighted in our weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties? — John David Geib

Look at our fathers in the old days, living masterpieces as they are and shining examples of true religion; and see how feeble our own achievement is, almost nothing. Heaven help us, what is our life in comparison with theirs? Holy people these, true friends of Christ, that could go hungry and thirsty in God's service; cold and ill-clad, worn out with labors and vigils and fasting, with praying and meditating on holy things, with all the persecutions and insults they endured. — Thomas A Kempis

Constancy, far from being a virtue, seems often to be the besetting sin of the human race, daughter of laziness and self-sufficiency, sister of sleep, the cause of most wars and practically all persecutions. — Freya Stark

Monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods, that razing of Indian temples and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun 3,000 years: just because a jealous god had said, Thou shalt make no graven image. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it must never be forgotten that we have a great intercessor that prays for us around the clock. Heb. 7:25 states, "Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them" (emphasis added). The days ahead are made much sweeter, even in the face of coming persecutions, when we know in our heart of hearts that our Savior peers daily into our lives praying and strengthening us to stand till the end of our call of service. — Michael L. Henderson

There is no place for fear among men and women who Almighty, who do not hesitate to humble themselves in seeking divine guidance through prayer. Though persecutions arise, though reverses come, in prayer we can find reassurance, for God will speak peace to the soul. That peace, that spirit of serenity, is life's greatest blessing. — Ezra Taft Benson

In Pakistan both branches [of the Ahmadis] fell to persecutions, sanction by the state in 1984 with General Zia Ul-Haq's Ordinance XX, which forbade Ahmadis of either branch from calling themselves Muslims, their religion Islam, or their temples mosques. Under penalty of law, they could not perform the call to pryaer, pray in the manner of Muslims, quote the Qur'an or hadith, greet each other with "as-salamu alaikum," or receite the shahadah ... In the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, it was illegal for some people to say, "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger. — Michael Muhammad Knight

Tests and persecutions will eventually lead to deliverance from bondage and make us stronger if we respond right to them — Sunday Adelaja

Compulsion in the literal Sense is maliciously misrepresented, by supposing it authorizes Violences committed against the Truth. The Answer to this; by which it is prov'd, that the literal Sense does in reality authorize the stirring up Persecutions against the Cause of Truth, and that an erroneous Conscience has the same Rights as an enlighten'd Conscience. — Pierre Bayle

During the persecutions under the Emperor Domitian, John was summoned to Rome, where he was tortured by immersion in a pot of boiling oil and subsequently banished to the island of Patmos in the Aegean sea. It was there he wrote his Apocalypse. It was only after the death of Domitian, in A.D. 96, that he returned to Ephesus, where he was still living during the reign of the Emperor Trajan (A.D. 98-117). He became so old and frail that he could no longer walk and had to be carried to meetings and services. All he could manage to say was, "My little children, love one another." He repeated this over and over. — Gilles Quispel

Thus the truth - that his life should be directed by the spiritual element which is its basis, which manifests itself as love, and which is so natural to man - this truth, in order to force a way to man's consciousness, had to struggle not merely against the obscurity with which it was expressed and the intentional and unintentional distortions surrounding it, but also against deliberate violence, which by means of persecutions and punishments sought to compel men to accept religious laws authorized by the rulers and conflicting with the truth. — Leo Tolstoy

To understand fully the causes which drove so many thousands into schism and heresy, leading to wars and persecutions, and the establishment of the Inquisition, it is necessary{6} to cast a glance at the character of the men who represented the Church before the people, and at the use which they made, for good or for evil, of the absolute spiritual despotism which had become established. In — Henry Charles Lea

Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death, and religiosu wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man? — Thomas Paine

In the 300 years of the crucifixion of Christ to the conversion of Emperor Constantine, polytheistic Roman emperors initiated no more than four general persecutions of Christians. Local administrators and governors incited some anti-Christian violence of their own. Still, if we combine all the victims of all these persecutions, it turns out that in these three centuries the polytheistic Romans killed no more than a few thousand Christians. In contrast, over the course, of the next 1,500 years, Christians slaughtered Christians by the millions, to defend slightly different interpretations of the religion of love and compassion. — Yuval Noah Harari

Persecutions are inevitable as a Christian. We are not greater than our Master, Jesus Christ, in whose Holy Spirit we gain strength to endure. — Monica Johnson

The patriot, like the Christian, must learn to bear revilings and persecutions as a part of his duty; and in proportion as the trial is severe, firmness under it becomes more requisite and praiseworthy. It requires, indeed, self-command. But that will be fortified in proportion as the calls for its exercise are repeated. — Thomas Jefferson

Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled, we have yet gained little if we counternance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of a bitter and bloody persecutions. — Thomas Jefferson

We face so many challenges in life: poverty, distress, humiliation, the struggle for justice, persecutions, the difficulty of daily conversion, the effort to remain faithful to our call to holiness, and many others. But if we open the door to Jesus and allow him to be part of our lives, if we share our joys and sorrows with him, then we will experience the peace and joy that only God, who is infinite love, can give. — Pope Francis

first settlers were emigrants from different European nations, and of diversified professions of religion, retiring from the governmental persecutions of the old world, and meeting in the new, not as enemies, but as brothers. The wants which necessarily accompany the cultivation of a wilderness produced among them a state of society, which countries long harassed by the quarrels and intrigues of governments, had neglected to cherish. In such a situation man becomes what he ought. He sees his species, not with the inhuman idea of a natural enemy, but as kindred; and the example shows to the artificial world, that man must go back to nature for information. — Thomas Paine

Oh, if you only knew what joy, what sweetness awaits a righteous soul in Heaven! You would decide in this mortal life to bear any sorrows, persecutions and slander with gratitude. If this very cell of ours was filled with worms, and these worms were to eat our flesh for our entire life on earth, we should agree to it with total desire, in order not to lose, by any chance, that heavenly joy which God has prepared for those who love Him. — Seraphim Of Sarov

The whole history of the last thousands of years has been a history of religious persecutions and wars, pogroms, jihads, crusades. I find it all very regrettable, to say the least. — Steven Weinberg

The saints rejoiced at injuries and persecutions, because in forgiving them they had something to present to God when they prayed to Him. — Teresa Of Avila

The blessing we receive for following Jesus comes also with persecutions, which, if we have faith to accept them, can also be a blessing. — Lori Stanley Roeleveld

The Church of Christ has been founded by shedding its own blood, not that of others; by enduring outrage, not by inflicting it. Persecutions have made it grow; martyrdoms have crowned it. — St. Jerome

I prize my own independence too much. And philosophically, I could never accept any rigid dogma or ideology, whether it's Christianity or Marxism ... The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide. — Saul Alinsky

The Christians who engaged in infamous persecutions and shameful inquisitions were not evil men but misguided men. The churchmen who felt they had an edict from God to withstand the progress of science, whether in the form of a Copernican revolution or a Darwinian theory of natural selection, were not mischievous men but misinformed men. — Martin Luther King Jr.

You must either suffer in this life or give up the hope of seeing God in Heaven. Sufferings and persecutions are of the greatest avail to us, because we can find therein a very efficient means to make atonement for our sins, since we are bound to suffer for them either in this world or in the next. — Jean-Marie Le Pen

As knowing God becomes more important to you, you will stop thinking about discouragements and persecutions; you will stop worrying altogether — Sunday Adelaja

So far from entrenching human conduct within the gentle barriers of peace and love, religion has ever been, and now is, the deepest source of contentions, wars, persecutions for conscience sake, angry words, angry feelings, backbitings, slanders, suspicions, false judgments, evil interpretations, unwise, unjust, injurious, inconsistent actions. — Frances Wright

Once again, through myself, the Church, in the words of the well-known declaration Nostra Aetate, 'deplores the hatred, persecutions and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews at any time and by anyone.' I repeat, 'By anyone.' — Pope John Paul II

Cruel persecutions and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essence of religion, namely, its absolute claims. — Morris Raphael Cohen

All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth. And that's where it turns demonic. Because that's when you get religious wars and persecutions and burning heretics at the stake. — John Shelby Spong

Secularism is a religion, a religion that is understood. It has no mysteries, no mumblings, no priests, no ceremonies, no falsehoods, no miracles, and no persecutions. — Robert Green Ingersoll

For most of us there was a central, unavoidable problem - the world was populated by people who were unlike us . That explained so many wars - particularly religious ones; that explained persecutions and injustices; that explained simple everyday irritation with one's fellow man: They were just not like us. — Alexander McCall Smith

Despite his persecutions, Mr. [Upton] Sinclair reveals himself in Money Writes! to be an enviable man. Always the thing he desires to believe is the thing he feels he knows to be true. — Dorothy Parker

If," we say readily, "God is holy and omnipotent, He would interfere and stop all this kind of thing"
meaning by "this kind of thing" wars, persecutions, cruelty, Hitlerism, Bolshevism, or whatever large issue happens to be distressing our minds at the time. But let us be quite sure that we have really considered the problem in all its aspects.
"Why doesn't God smite this dictator dead?" is a question a little remote from us. Why, madam, did He not strike you dumb and imbecile before you uttered that baseless and unkind slander the day before yesterday? Or me, before I behaved with such cruel lack of consideration to that well-meaning friend? And why, sir, did He not cause your hand to rot off at the wrist before you signed your name to that dirty little bit of financial trickery? — Dorothy L. Sayers

The end of the persecutions was, paradoxically, a source of disappointment for many Christians. In the new climate of imperial favour, bishops were increasingly at war with their congregations and with one another, arguing about matters ranging from the mundane to the mystical. Money was often at the root of the problem, and this was distressing. — Kate Cooper

In Constantinople, more Christians were slaughtered by Christians in the years 342-343 than by all the persecutions by pagans in the history of Rome. — Will Durant

Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak then I am strong. — Anonymous

There is a fundamental similarity between the persecution of individuals who engage in consenting homosexual activity in private, or who ingest, inject, or smoke various substances that alter their feelings and thoughts and the traditional persecution of men for their religion ... What all of these persecutions have in common is that the victims are harassed by the majority not because they engage in overtly aggressive or destructive acts, ... but because their conduct or appearance offends a group intolerant to and threatened by human differences. — Thomas Szasz

The early church was married to poverty, prisons and persecutions. Today, the church is married to prosperity, personality, and popularity. — Leonard Ravenhill

The suffering and calamity are, moreover, exceptional. They befall a conspicuous person. They are themselves of some striking kind. They are also, as a rule, unexpected, and contrasted with previous happiness or glory. A tale, for example, of a man slowly worn to death by disease, poverty, little cares, sordid vices, petty persecutions, however piteous or dreadful it might be, would not be tragic in the Shakespearean sense. — A. C. Bradley

Earnest Freethinkers need not worry themselves so much about the persecutions of the past. Before the Liberal idea is dead or triumphant we shall see wars and persecutions the like of which the world has never seen. — G.K. Chesterton

In this manner the Church proceeds on its pilgrim way in this world, in these evil days. Its troubled course began not merely in the time of the bodily presence of Christ and the time of his apostles; it started with Abel himself, the first righteous man slain by an ungodly brother; and the pilgrimage goes on from that time right up to the end of history, with the persecutions of the world on one side, and on the other the consolations of God. — Augustine Of Hippo

How easily we abandon those who have suffered the same persecutions as we have. How quickly we grow impatient with their inability to transcend the conditions of our lives. — Larissa Lai