Fagot Quotes

If the doctrine of free-will has raised up fanatics and persecutors, who, assuming that men may be good under all conditions if they merely wish to be so, have sought to persuade other men's wills with threats, fines, imprisonments, torture, the spike, the wheel, the axe, the fagot, in order to make them good and save them against their obdurate wills; if the doctrine of Spiritualism, the soul supreme, has done this, the doctrine of Materialistic Determinism has produced shifting, self-excusing, worthless, parasitical characters, who are this now and that at some other time, and anything and nothing upon principle. "My conditions have made me so," they cry, and there is no more to be said; poor mirror-ghosts! how could they help it! (Voltairine de Cleyre)
Then brought they a fagot kindled with fire, and layd the same downe at D. Ridleys feete. To whome Maister Latymer spake in this maner: Be of good comfort maister Ridley, and play the man: wee shall this day light such a candle by Gods grace in England, as (I trust) shall neuer be put out. View quote
John Foxe
When Voltaire was born really but one church which, of course, was ignorant, tyrannical and barbarous in the extreme. All creeds are alike, and whenever there is but one, and the rulers honestly believe in that one, they are bound to be ignorant, barbarous and cruel. All sorts of heresies were punishable by death. If anyone dared to write a pamphlet or book that questioned any part of the accepted faith, the book was at once consigned to flames and the author was lucky if he did not meet the same fate. Religion was not maintained by the precepts of the priest, but by the prison, the torture chamber and the fagot. Everyone believed; no one questioned. The religious creeds, while strict and barbarous, did not interfere with the personal conduct of any of the rulers. They were left free to act as they pleased, so long as they professed to believe in the prevailing faith. View quote
Clarence Darrow
the good men, the good women, are tired of the whip and lash in the realm of thought. They remember the chain and fagot with a shudder. They are free, and they give liberty to others; whoever claims any right that he is unwilling to accord to his fellow-men is dishonest and infamous. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
Wide open and unguarded stand our gates, Named of the four winds, North, South, East and West; Portals that lead to an enchanted land... Here, it is written, Toil shall have its wage And Honor honor, and the humblest man Stand level with the highest in the law. Of such a land have men in dungeons dreamed And with the vision brightening in their eyes Gone smiling to the fagot and the sword. O Liberty, white Goddess! is it well To leave the gates unguarded? On thy breast Fold Sorrow's children, soothe the hurts of Fate, Lift the down-trodden, but with hand of steel Stay those who to thy sacred portals come To waste the gifts of Freedom. View quote
Thomas Bailey Aldrich