Cesar Chavez - Richard Dawkins TV - Mankind: The Story of All of Us TV - Peter, Paul and the Christian Revolution TV - Charles I - Fyodor Dostoevsky - Ben Jonson - George Bernard Shaw - Muammar al-Gaddafi - Soren Kierkegaard - Peter Ackroyd - William Blake - Anthony Burgess - Rumpole of the Bailey TV -
We don’t know how God chooses martyrs. We do know that they give us the most precious gift they possess – their very lives. Cesar Chavez
Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr’s death will send them straight to heaven. Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
There are would-be murderers all round the world who want to kill you and me and themselves because they’re motivated by what they think is the highest ideal ... The elephant in the room: an elephant called Religion. The suicide bomber is convinced that in killing for his God, he will be fast-tracked to a special martyr’s heaven. Richard Dawkins, The Root of All Evil? The God Delusion, Channel 4 2006
Thousands of Christians are executed and become celebrated as martyrs. Mankind: The Story of All of Us III, History Channel 2012
Stephen was stoned to death. Peter & Paul and the Christian Revolution I, PBS 2003
If I would have given way to an arbitrary way, for to have all laws changed according to the power of the sword, I needed not to have come here; and therefore I tell you (and I pray God it be not laid to your charge) that I am the martyr of the people. Charles I
Men reject their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and honour those whom they have slain. Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821-81, The Brothers Karamazov
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test. Ben Jonson
Martyrdom ... the only way in which a man can become famous without ability. George Bernard Shaw, The Devil’s Disciple, 1901
I will die a martyr at the end. Muammar al-Gaddafi, 23rd February 2011
The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins. Soren Kierkegaard
His head was boiled, impaled upon a pole and raised above London Bridge. So ended the life of Thomas More, one of the few Londoners upon whom sainthood has been conferred and the first English layman to be beatified as a martyr. Peter Ackroyd
For a tear is an intellectual thing;
And a sigh is the sword of an angel-king;
And the bitter groan of a martyr’s woe
Is an arrow from the Almighty’s bow. William Blake, The Grey Monk
That so many writers have been prepared to accept a kind of martyrdom is the best tribute that flesh can pay to the living spirit of man as expressed in his literature. One cannot doubt that the martyrdom will continue to be gladly embraced. To some of us, the wresting of beauty out of language is the only thing in the world that matters. Anthony Burgess, English Literature: A Survey for Students, 1958
Martyrs make me exceedingly nervous. Rumpole of the Bailey s3e3: Rumpole and the Old Boy Network, ITV 1983