They have nothing in their whole imperial arsenal that can break the spirit of one Irishman who doesn't want to be broken.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the indomitable spirit of individuals in the face of oppression.
Bobby Sands highlights the power of the human spirit against external forces of tyranny and control. He suggests that no amount of physical power or weaponry can subdue someone who is determined to remain free and unbroken in their beliefs, reflecting a profound courage and resilience inherent in the human condition, particularly in the context of political strife and personal conviction.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech advocating for human rights.
They won't break me because the desire for freedom, and the freedom of the Irish people, is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then that we will see the rising of the moon.
I am dying not just to attempt to end the barbarity of H-blocks or to gain the rightful recognition of political prisoners, but primarily because what is lost here is lost for the Republic.
If a British government experienced such a long and persistent resistance to domestic policy in England, then that policy would almost certainly be changed... We have asserted that we are political prisoners, and everything about out country - our arrests, interrogations, trials, and prison conditions - show that we are politically motivated.
They will not criminalise us, rob us of our true identity, steal our individualism, depoliticise us, churn us out as systemised, institutionalised, decent law-abiding robots. Never will they label our liberation struggle as criminal.
There can never be peace in Ireland until the foreign oppressive British presence is removed, leaving all the Irish people as a unit to control their own affairs and determine their own destinies as a sovereign people, free in mind and body, separate and distinct physically, culturally and economically.
My life now centered around sleepless nights and stand-bys, dodging the Brits and calming nerves to go out on operations. But the people stood by us. The people not only opened the doors of their homes to lend us a hand, but they opened their hearts to us. I learned that without the people, we could not survive and I knew that I owed them everything.
Those revolutionaries who have, by chance, escaped the gallows should live and show to the world that they cannot only embrace gallows for the ideal but also bear the worst type of tortures in the dark, dingy prison cells.
During the first two months of the war it was the Anarchists more than anyone else who had saved the situation, and much later than this the Anarchist militia, in spite of their indiscipline, were notoriously the best fighters among the purely Spanish forces.
U.S. journalists I don't think are very courageous. They tend to go along with the government's policy domestically and internationally. To question is seen as being unpatriotic, or potentially subversive.
I warn you against shedding blood, indulging in it and making a habit of it, for blood never sleeps.
I was scared many times on Everest, but this is all part of the challenge. When I fell down a crevasse, it was pretty scary.
The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.
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