Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Quotes

Those prepared to die for the truth, as a rule make many others die with them, often before them, and at times instead of them.

If it is decreed that I should go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the truth—let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right.

I do not wish to be melodramatic, but at some point I have to say it. If something bad should happen to me, I want you to know that my commitment to what I am doing has been freely contracted, with the joy of knowing that this is precisely what I should be doing at this moment. Fear is constantly present in each one of us, because none of us are movie heroes. But we refuse to accept that fear must condition our actions and prevent us from doing what with a cool head and fervent heart we understand should be done.

We must know what we think and speak out, even at the risk of unpopularity.

To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement.

We would not let ourselves be burned to death for our opinions: we are not sure enough of them for that.

Shall I faint, now that I have poured out the spirit of my mind to the world, and treated many subjects with truth, with freedom, with power, because I have been followed with one cry of abuse ever since for not being a Government tool?

Freedom has a price. Most people aren't willing to pay it.

I'm not scared about saying what I think.

If you're not ready to die for it, put the word 'freedom' out of your vocabulary.

This nation was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the principle - among others - that honest men may honestly disagree; that if they all say what they think, a majority of the people will be able to distinguish truth from error.

Martyrdom is evidence only of a man's honesty - it is no evidence that he is not mistaken. Men have suffered martyrdom for all sorts of opinions in politics and in religion; yet they could not therefore have all been in the right; although they could give no stronger evidence that they believed themselves in the right.

I wish to be a martyr, and I don't fear death.

There comes a time in the history of nations when fear and forgetfulness cause a nation to hesitate, to waver, and perhaps even to succumb. When that time comes, those who love liberty must rise to the occasion. Will you lovers of liberty rise to the occasion?

When a man fails to see the truth of certain generally accepted views, there is no law compelling him to provoke animosity by announcing his dissent.

If what you do is being threatened as a profession, that could be scary. But that's the same reason why I walked out on stage many times after receiving death threats. I couldn't live without doing what I wanted to do. So at the same time I have to be willing to die for it.

We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death.

Truth has very few friends and those few are suicides.

There is a term called political correctness, and I consider it to be a euphemism for political cowardice.

I became an actor in that important drama with an inflexible resolution to persevere through the last scene, when we might be permitted and acknowledged to enjoy what we had so nobly declared we would possess, or lose with our lives - Freedom and Independence!

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity.

Denounce me for advocating freedom if you can, and I will bear your curse with a better resignation.

Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has the right to be wrong in his facts.

It is always easy to take a position when society agrees with you. It is hard to take a position that everyone else in society disagrees with.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it.