History on Fire

“I don’t want to have anything to do with people who make one carry water on the shoulders and haul manure. You are fools to make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hardtack, and a little sugar and coffee. The whites may get me at last, but I will have good times till then.” Sitting Bull  “Let me live deep while I live.” Robert E. Howard “Were I to run away from the enemy, no one will...

“Sitting Bull, leader of the largest Indian nation on the continent, the strongest, boldest, most stubborn opponent of European influence, was the very heart and soul of the Frontier. When the true history of the New World is written, he will receive his chapter. For Sitting Bull was one of the Makers of America.” Stanley Vestal “If you intend to do this for my sake, take good care of them and let...

“…we venerate the crooks, rapists, and pillagers credulous historians have repackaged as ‘founders,’ ‘conquerors,’ and ‘civilize.’ We erect statues and consecrate tombs to commemorate their difference-making. But in fact, most of these monuments memorialize the dark deeds of unhinged lunatics driven by rampant ego and raving greed… most of the supposed ‘great men of history’ were criminals on a ra...

“Until the philosophy  Which hold one race superior and another Inferior Is finally And permanently Discredited And abandoned Everywhere is war” Bob Marley, War, inspired by a speech by Haile Selassie “Emmett Till is dead and gone… Why can’t people leave the dead alone and quit trying to stir things up?” Roy Bryant  “I think black peoples' reaction was so visceral. Everybody knew we were under att...

“The Puritans feared that which was undomesticated.” Jeff Hendricks “Our earliest American heroes were Morton’s oppressors, Endicott, Bradford, Miles Standish. Merry Mount’s been expunged from the official version because it’s the story not of a virtuous utopia but of a utopia of candor. Yet it’s Morton whose face should be carved in Mount Rushmore.” Philip Roth “He held out the promise of America...

“I teach Kodokan judo as a way of life.” Jigoro Kano “Even though he was drunker than usual, Saigo came to the driver’s aid. The burly sailors laughed out loud: “Scram, midget!” Much to their great surprise and considerable pain, in a flash, the pocket Hercules subsequently hurled each of them into the river.” John Stevens “I have not been able to transmit my ideals to many students, and there are...

“It was a period of stupendous change and immense challenge; the entire social, political, and economic landscape of Japan would be transformed within a few decades. Just as this new era was dawning in Japan, Jigoro Kano was born, on October 28, 1860.” John Stevens “In my childhood, I had heard that there was a thing called jujutsu thanks to which even a weak person could defeat a strong person. I...

“The adopted father gave away many presents to the people, and these in turn gave presents to me. Thus I became a Crow Indian, a brother of Three Irons and a son of Yellow Leggings, who was a leading counselor of Blackbird, chief of the Mountain Crow tribe.” Tom Le Forge “Cherry was utterly cool… under fire. She was as brave as the bravest. She liked to sing and pray, she was jolly and amiable, bu...

“In order to depict a battle, there is required one of those powerful painters who have chaos in their brushes” Victor Hugo “Inconceivable!” From The Princess Bride A little over 2,000 years ago, Rome was a well-oiled war machine crushing everything in its path. At that time, the Roman legions were the most deadly military force in the Western world, and possibly in the whole world. Every year, th...

“Reflecting upon the chiefs I had known, I realized that here had never been one who was very well off. Poverty was part of a chief’s obligations…” Frank Bird Linderman    Plenty Coups “While we painted ourselves the drums kept beating, and our women sang war-songs. No man can feel himself a coward at such a time. Every man that lives will welcome battle while brave men and women sing war-songs. I...

“This animal is a monster whose father is a lion; it remains open what the mother is.” Jean-Baptiste Boulanger Duhamel   “I would be tempted to imagine that we are dealing with a witch, or the devil in person, if only I could believe it.” Jean-Baptiste Boulanger Duhamel     It’s the 1760s, in the Gevaudan area of South Central France. Imagine being a kid. Maybe 12 years old. Maybe as young as 8. Y...

“…a mad, wicked folly…” Queen Victoria about the notion of women having the right to vote   “When I watched a policeman fell a girl to the ground and kick her across the platform, my only regret was that I had no weapon with which to strike him an effective blow.” Eunice G. Murray   “£100 to any man who can defeat him. Notwithstanding the physical disadvantages against heavier men (for Tani weighs...

“I cut off their heads. I burned them with fire. With their blood I dyed the mountain red like red wool. Men I impaled on stakes. The city I destroyed, devastated… the young men and maidens I burned in the fire.” Ashurnairpal II  “I filled the wide plain with the corpses of his warriors…. These [rebels] I impaled on stakes. …A pyramid of heads I erected in front of the city.” Salmaneser III “Don’t...

“Jeet Kune Do favors formlessness so that it can assume all forms and since Jeet Kune Do has no style, it can fit with all styles. As a result, Jeet Kune Do utilizes all ways and is bound by none and, likewise, uses any techniques or means which serve its ends.” Bruce Lee “1. Research your own experience. 2. Absorb what is useful. 3. Reject what is useless. 4. Add what is specifically your own.” B...

“Energy is eternal delight.” William Blake    “Hong Kong in the 1950s was a depressed place. Post–World War II Hong Kong had suffered from unemployment, a poor economy, over-crowding, homelessness, and people taking advantage of each other. Gangs roamed the street, and juvenile delinquents ran rampant.” Hawkins Cheung   “Teachers should never impose their favorite patterns on their students—he sai...

“I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.” John Brown    “If you seek my blood, you can have it at any moment without the mockery of a trial.” John Brown   “John Brown, and a thousand John Browns, can invade us, and the Government will not protect us. To secure our rights and protect our honor we will dissever the ties that b...

“I think he [God] has used me as an instrument to kill men; and if I live, I think he will use me as an instrument to kill a good many more.” John Brown   “I had reached the point at which I was not afraid to die. This spirit made me a freeman in fact, while I remained a slave in form.” Frederick Douglass    “I have only a short time to live, only death to die and I will die fighting for this caus...

“You know what John Brown did? He went to war. He was a white man who went to war against white people to help free slaves. White people call John Brown a nut. Go read the history, go read what all of them say about John Brown. They’re trying to make it look like he was a nut, a fanatic… But they depict him in this image because he was willing to shed blood to free the slaves. And any white man wh...

“He must be handed over to a tribunal of the people so it can judge him quickly. We want this, even though we think an execution platoon is too much of an honor for this man. He would deserve to be killed like a mangy dog.” Future Italian President Sandro Pertini about Benito Mussolini “The world unfortunately continues to be a battlefield where different egos clash, repeating the mistakes of the...

“Women must obey… My opinion of women’s role within the state is against any kind of feminism. In our state, women must not count.” Benito Mussolini “Yes, I participated in the actions. I usually had the task of carrying the weapons and would hand them to our shooters. As soon as they had used them, I’d get them back from them—still hot.” Liana Germani “I was mostly afraid of torture had they capt...

“If I knew the way, I would take you home.”  From the song Ripple by the Grateful Dead “The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.” Bertrand Russell “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” Michael Jordan “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” Tao Te Ching In most fields, we are taught that people in your same profession are your competitors...

“From an author’s perspective, writing about sex is risky, because if you write well enough, evocatively enough, vividly enough, you make the reader want to put the book aside and go get laid.” Tom Robbins “Let's live and love, Caring less than nothing for The moralizing of stern old men. The sun sets and rises back again, But an eternal night of sleep awaits us When our brief light turns to darkn...

“Everywhere in southern Anhui they are eating people.” Zeng Guofan “Infants but recently born were torn from their mother’s breasts, and disemboweled before their faces. Young strong men were disemboweled, mutilated, and the parts cut off thrust into their own mouths…” A British testimony on the Qing treatment of POWs If I were to ask you which is the deadliest conflict in history, you’d probably...

“Is not this insurgent movement truly wonderful? These rebels keep Sabbath as we do, they pray to God daily, they read the Scriptures, they break the idols, and they long for the time when, instead of those heathen temples, they shall have Christian chapels, and worship together with us… is it not a remarkable era in China?” A Christian missionary wife about the Taiping Rebellion “Jesus our Elder...

“The entire story of the Taiping Rebellion might be told, from one perspective, as the rage of a failed exam candidate writ large.” Stephen Platt  “They may not intend to harm others on purpose, but the fact remains that they are so obsessed with material gain that they have no concern whatever for the harm they can cause to others.” Lin Zexu about British opium traders “Heaven is furious with ang...