Tariq Ramadan Quotes

When you close your eyes to tragedy, you close your eyes to greatness.

If blood is to be shed, let it be our blood ... For man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hand of his brother, never by killing him.

We must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have. It is a weapon that we as Americans do have. Let that be understood by those who practice terrorism and prey upon their neighbors. As for the enemies of freedom, those who are potential adversaries, they will be reminded that peace is the highest aspiration of the American people. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it; We will not surrender for it, now or ever. We are Americans.

To preach of peace and brotherhood, oh what might be the cost? A man he did it long ago, and they hung him on a cross.

There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared. It is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving oneself completely to God's commandment. Wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of almighty God. Not trying to direct it for selfish purposes. Battles are won not with weapons, but with God. They are won when the way leads to the cross.

We must love men more than things, and I admire and weep more for the soldiers than for the churches which were only the recording of an heroic gesture which today is reenacted at every moment.

The willing sacrifice of the innocent is the most powerful answer to insolent tyranny that has yet been conceived by God or man.

What we depend upon in a political leader is the fact that if necessary he will kill for us…. If he is not willing to shed blood we are afraid of him. He must protect us.

We live in a country that has shed more blood for the freedom of other people than all the rest of the world combined.

So long as you are ready to die for Humanity, the life of your country will be immortal

Men who have sacrifice their well-being, and even their lives, for the cause of truth or the public good, are, from an empirical point of view -- which scorns virtue and altruism -- regarded as insane or fools; but, from a moral standpoint, they are heroes who do honor to humanity..

Whatever miseries this war brings upon us, it is making us wiser, and, we trust, better. Wiser, for we are learning our weakness, our narrowness, our selfishness, our ignorance, in lessons of sorrow and shame. Better, because all that is noble in men and women is demanded by the time, and our people are rising to the standard the time calls for. For this is the question the hour is putting to each of us: Are you ready, if need be, to sacrifice all that you have and hope for in this world, that the generations to follow you may inherit a whole country whose natural condition shall be peace, and not a broken province which must live under the perpetual threat, if not in the constant presence, of war and all that war brings with it? If we are all ready for this sacrifice, battles may be lost, but the campaign and its grand object must be won.

When were the good and the brave ever in a majority?

Saviors don’t have policies. They have energy.

I have sacrificed not only my favorite scheme of life, but the softer affections of the heart, and my prospects of domestic happiness, and I am ready to sacrifice my life also, with cheerfulness, if that forfeiture could restore peace and good will among mankind.

It is my deepest belief that only by giving our lives do we find life. I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally non-violent struggle for justice.

To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us to be men!

It's not easy to be a hero. You do it because of what you believe, not because of what other people deserve.

Perhaps the right to authenticity and the reverence of authenticity should be reserved for people like John McCain. John McCain who at his most authentic chose to stay and face years of torture rather than leave before his brothers.

Superheroes are the best of us. Never mind all those powers or the crazy costumes. The heart of a superhero is meant to inspire.

Heroes aren't perfect.

The Buggers have finally, finally learned that we humans value each and every individual human life. But they've learned this lesson just in time for it to be hopelessly wrong — for we humans do, when the cause is sufficient, spend our own lives. We throw ourselves onto the grenade to save our buddies in the foxhole. We rise out of the trenches and charge the entrenched enemy and die like maggots under a blowtorch. We strap bombs on our bodies and blow ourselves up in the midst of our enemies. We are, when the cause is sufficient, insane.

Sacrifice life to truth.

Life is not worth living for which a man is not prepared to die at any moment.