I have mortally opposed the English king; I have stormed and taken the towns and castles which he unjustly claimed as his own.
William WallaceRead
I'm William Wallace, and the rest of you will be spared. Go back to England and tell them... Scotland is free!
Interpretation
This quote embodies the spirit of bravery and the fight for freedom.
William Wallace's declaration symbolizes the ultimate sacrifice for the cause of liberty and independence. It is a powerful call to resist oppression and fight for one's rights, inspiring others to stand up against tyranny with courage and conviction.
In practice
In a speech advocating for civil rights, one might quote this to invoke the spirit of freedom.
I have mortally opposed the English king; I have stormed and taken the towns and castles which he unjustly claimed as his own.
If I or my soldiers have plundered or done injury to the houses or to the ministers of religion, I repent me of my sin - but it is not of Edward of England that I shall ask pardon.
To Edward, I cannot be a traitor, for I owe him no allegiance; he is not my sovereign; he never received my homage; and whilst life is in this persecuted body, he shall never receive it.
Return to your friends and tell them that we came here with no peaceful intent, but ready for battle, and determined to avenge our own wrongs and set our country free. Let your masters come and attack us: we are ready to meet them beard to beard.
As to my followers, I wish no man to follow me who is not sound at the heart in the cause of his country; and either at the head or in the ranks of these, I will always consider it my glory to be found.
I always showed myself in the face of day, asserting the liberty and independence of my country, while some others, like owls, courted concealment and were too much afraid of losing their roosts to leave them for such a cause.
Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising I came singing into the sun, sword unsheathing. To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!
Having spent 37 years of my life in the military as a reservist, and never having met a gay in all of that time, and never having even talked about it in all those years, I just thought, why the hell shouldn't they serve? They're American citizens. As long as they're not doing things that are harmful to anyone else... So I came out for it.
Nothing in this world is more inspiring than a soul up against crippling circumstances who carries it off with courage and faith and undefeated character-nothing! See Light From Many Lamps, edited by L. E. Watson, article by H. E. Fosdick, pp. 93-94 re: a serious cripple who succeeded.
I vowed I wouldn't ever let anyone destroy me again. I was going to work at it every day, so hard that I would be the toughest guy in the world. By the end of practice, I wanted to be physically tired, to know that I'd been through a workout. If I wasn't tired, I must have cheated somehow, so I stayed a little longer.
There is always more spirit in attack than in defence.
Looking back, I call the first month after my diagnosis 'the cancer bubble' because I wasn't showing obvious signs of my disease. I looked about the same - maybe a little more tired and pale than usual, but a stranger could never have guessed that I carried a secret, deep in my bones.
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