Bobby Sands Quotes

I believe that movements to suppress wrongs can be carried out under the protection of our flag.

I can understand if you think that I'm disrespecting the flag by kneeling, but it is because of my utmost respect for the flag and the promise it represents that I have chosen to demonstrate in this way.

Where I come from, if you see your family and friends' civil rights being taken away, you speak up and do everything you can to keep that from happening!

Now they have come to the place where their faith can no longer feed on the bread of repression and violence. They ask for the bread of liberty, of public equality, and public responsibility. It must not be denied them.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

The Vietnamese people deeply love independence, freedom and peace. But in the face of United States aggression they have risen up, united as one man.

The people's flag is deepest red; It shrouded oft our martyred dead .... Then raise the scarlet standard high. Within its shade we'll live or die. Tho' cowards flinch and traitors sneer, We'll keep the red flag flying here.

Fellow citizens: The hour to try your souls and to redeem your pledges has arrived. Stand together in face of the brutal, cowardly enemies of your race! Bring English tyranny to its knees. Pay no rent under any pretext! The government, with its bayonets, will learn in a single Winter how powerless are armed forces against the will of a united determined, and self-reliant nation.

True patriotism springs from a belief in the dignity of the individual, freedom and equality not only for Americans but for all people on earth, universal brotherhood and good will, and a constant and earnest striving toward the principles and ideals on which this country was founded.

In all the Arab countries I have been in, the people have said that they were not demonstrating for food. They wanted dignity.

Nationalism has nothing to do with the rule of law, justice, or opportunity.

The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the revolution, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow - and they will win.

Our founding fathers declared independence from Great Britain because they were dissatisfied with the laws and policies that they believed abridged their freedoms. Had they taken the stance that many want our professional athletes to take - to just shut up and honor your country no matter what - we would be living in British colonies.

This is the greatest country under the sun. But we must not let our love of country, our patriotic loyalty, cause us to abate one whit in our protest against wrong and injustice.

As you look at me and listen to me, please remember the often repeated truth that one prisoner of conscience is one too many.

Many years later, after Niemöller had been imprisoned for eight years in concentration camps as the personal prisoner of Adolf Hitler, he penned these infamous words: First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionist, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew. And then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.

We say no to the peace that keeps us on our knees, no to the peace that keeps us in chains, no to the false peace that denies the values and contributions of our peoples.

One prisoner of conscience is one too many.

Where all your rights become only an accumulated wrong; where men must beg with bated breath for leave to subsist in their own land, to think their own thoughts, to sing their own songs, to garner the fruits of their own labours...then surely it is a braver, a saner and a truer thing, to be a rebel in act and deed against such circumstances as these than tamely to accept it as the natural lot of men.

Wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn to protect the rights of man, I am a rebel. Wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn to give man liberty, to clothe him in all his just rights, I am on the side of that rebellion.

Standing as I do, with my hand upon this staff, and under the folds of the American flag, I ask you to stand by me so long as I stand by it.

We have not forgotten the occupier. We remain a resistance.

When I joined politics, I was arrested in Luanshya... In 1960, I was with great people like Justine Chimba, Mazimba from Ndola and Dingiswayo Banda.

Albanians are a nation of freedom fighters who know something about living under oppression.

We have but one flag, one country; let us stand together. We may differ in color, but not in sentiment. Many things have been said about me which are wrong, and which white and black persons here, who stood by me through the war, can contradict.