Crusades Quotes

“If we are erring through a wasteland of memories, missing all the appointments with love, we must decide to give up the crusades against the figments in our thinking pattern. We cannot allow the draconian phantoms of the past to possess our thoughts and colonize our life. (“Not without the past”)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Suppose that a man leaps out of a burning building—as my dear friend and colleague Jeff Goldberg sat and said to my face over a table at La Tomate in Washington not two years ago—and lands on a bystander in the street below. Now, make the burning building be Europe, and the luckless man underneath be the Palestinian Arabs. Is this a historical injustice? Has the man below been made a victim, with infinite cause of complaint and indefinite justification for violent retaliation? My own reply would be a provisional 'no,' but only on these conditions. The man leaping from the burning building must still make such restitution as he can to the man who broke his fall, and must not pretend that he never even landed on him. And he must base his case on the singularity and uniqueness of the original leap. It can't, in other words, be 'leap, leap, leap' for four generations and more. The people underneath cannot be expected to tolerate leaping on this scale and of this duration, if you catch my drift. In Palestine, tread softly, for you tread on their dreams. And do not tell the Palestinians that they were never fallen upon and bruised in the first place. Do not shame yourself with the cheap lie that they were told by their leaders to run away. Also, stop saying that nobody knew how to cultivate oranges in Jaffa until the Jews showed them how. 'Making the desert bloom'—one of Yvonne's stock phrases—makes desert dwellers out of people who were the agricultural superiors of the Crusaders.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“I have learned that the harder you fall…the higher you bounce!”
― John Paul Warren

“It is precisely that requirement of shared worship that has been the principal source of suffering for individual man and the human race since the beginning of history. In their efforts to impose universal worship, men have unsheathed their swords and killed one another. They have invented gods and challenged each other: "Discard your gods and worship mine or I will destroy both your gods and you!”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“I have always known that the best of the Saracens could out-Christian many of us Christians.”
― Ellis Peters, The Leper of Saint Giles

“They are an American Delegation who are doing a tour of the region to apologize for the crusades', said Arafat. Then he, and his guest, burst out laughing. They both knew that America had little or no involvement in the wars of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. But Arafat, at any rate, was happy to indulge the affliction of anyone who believed they had and use it to his own political advantage.”
― Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam

“Jesus in the Temple of God in Jerusalem

Matthew 21

12: AND JESUS WENT INTO THE TEMPLE OF GOD, AND CAST OUT ALL THEM THAT SOLD AND BOUGHT IN THE TEMPLE, AND OVERTHROW THE TABLES OF THE MONEY-CHANGERS, AND THE SEATS OF THEM THAT SOLD DOVES

Rebellion is individual. It comes out of the truth of one being.

Revolutions are organized, but you can not organize a rebellion.

Revolutions becomes establishment, and then they fail.

Rebellion comes out of the truth and authenticity of one being's heart.

Revolution is organized and political, rebellion is spiritual.

A revolution is of the future, rebellion is here and now.

In revolution, you try to change others, in rebellion you change yourself.

Jesus is a rebel.

Christianity is the organized religion, which appeared after Jesus was murdered.

Christianity is established by the same establishment that Jesus rebelled against.

Jesus is a rebel, who lived out of his own love, truth and understanding.

AND HE SAID TO THEM, IT IS WRITTEN, MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED THE HOUSE OF PRAYER

Jesus entered the temple of God in Jerusalem, and saw that the temple had been destryed. It was not a house of prayer.

People were not meditating, people were not praying. The temple was no longer the abode of God.

Priests have always been against God. The talk about God, but they are basically against God. They do not teach truth.

The temple of God in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the priests.

Christianity is based on one simple word: love. But the result of Christianity is wars, murder and crusades.

The priests go on talking about love, but he does not live in love.

AND HE SAID UNTO THEM, IT IS WRITTEN, MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED THE HOUSE OF PRAYER; BUT YE HAVE MADE IT A DEN OF THIEVES

Jesus says that the temple of God, is not longer a house of prayer. It is a house of thieves.

AND WHEN HE WAS COME INTO THE TEMPLE, THE CHIEF PRIESTS AND THE ELDERS OF THE PEOPLE CAME UNTO HIM AS HE WAS TEACHING AND SAID, BY WHAT AUTHORITY DOES THOU THESE THINGS? AND WHO GAVE THEE THIS AUTHORITY?

Organized religion always asks about authority, status, as if truth needs some authority, some licensing from the outside.

The priests talks the language of the establishment, even while meeting a mystic like Jesus.

Truth arises from your own being, this is the inner authority.

Truth is born out of your own being.

The priests asks Jesus who has given him the authority to overthrow the tables of the money-changers? Who has given him the authority to change the rules of the temple?

But Jesus did not answer the priests. He remained silent.

Jesus is his own authority.

Jesus whole message is to be your own authority. You are not here to follow anybody.

You are here to be yourself.

Your life is yours. Your love is your inner being.

The priests wanted to arrest Jesus and throw him into prison, but they were afraid of the masses of people who listened to Jesus.

They had to wait for the right moment to arrest him.

The authentic mystic is always a danger to the priests and the organized religion.

When you can allow the yes to be born in you, there is no need to go to a temple.

Then God desends in you.

Whenever a man is ready, God finds him.”
― Swami Dhyan Giten

“To Roland's relief, Jean de Joinville came to his aid. "Sire, this good knight wants only to preserve your life. Let us all ride together against the Egyptians."
"If I ride against them alone, God will protect me," said Louis.
A new figure pushed into the circle. He wore the white surcoat and red cross of a Templar over his mail. With a leap of his heart, Roland recognized Guido Bruchesi.
Guido looked at him but did not acknowledge him. He went directly to the King.
He spoke quietly but firmly. "Sire, what you have just said is presumption."
"I do not see how that could be, brother Templar." But Louis took his foot out of the stirrup as Roland watched with growing hope. You can always catch Louis's attention with a religious argument, Roland thought, even on the battlefield.
"Sire," said Guido, "Satan tempted our Seigneur Jesus, telling Him that if He cast Himself down from the mountaintop, angels would lift him up." Guido cast a sidelong look at Amalric. "You, Sire, are being tempted to ride alone against the whole Egyptian army, expecting God's protection. You are demanding a miracle. That is presumption."
Louis was silent for a moment. "Perhaps you are right."
Roland let out a long breath.”
― Robert Shea, All Things Are Lights

“They reminded me, however, of soldiers in the Crusades, the Wars of the Roses or the Norman Conquest. Thick, but willing to fight anyone if told to”
― Karl Wiggins, Calico Jack in your Garden

“Men of God are not just born, they are formed”
― John Paul Warren

“By now the crusaders had christened the most powerful French catapult 'Mal Voisine', or 'Bad Neighbour', while nicknaming the Muslim stone-thrower that targeted it for conter-bombardment 'Mal Cousine', or 'Bad Relation'.”
― Thomas Asbridge

“I remember one Gentleman objected to the Christian Faith, that it made Men insolent, quarrelsom and ill-natur'd. From whence I concluded, (as I told him) that he had never read over the Gospells; truly he could not say that he had read 'em carefully, but yet that in reading the History of what had passed in Christendom, he observed that most of the Quarrels in which this part of the World had been engaged, arose from contentions among the Christian Priesthood. Church-History is chiefly a relation of Church-mens Wrangles, and D. Cave in a late Book of his has denominated every Century from some eminent Quarrel which arose among the Clergy. But besides this, what was the Holy War, what all the holy Massacres and Croisados which filled Europe with Blood, but the Inventions of the Holy Church? And what is holy Inquisition, but a perpetual Series of Murthers carry'd on in barbarous Forms of Law against the common Sense of Mankind? Does History account for any Barbarities so great as those committed by the Popes? Any Cruelties so savage as those of the Holy Inquisition? Any Murthers so solemn, and religiously brutal as the Acts of Faith? Any Pragmaticalness so insufferable as that of the Jesuits? is not their Humanity extinguished by their Christian Religion? Such is their Malice that no Man can eat Bread where they have to do, unless he submit his Faith to their guidance, witness the present French Persecution.”
― William Stephens, An account of the growth of deism in England

“Religion is the most powerful entity on earth. A phenomenon that has conscripted millions to give or sacrifice their lives without so much as a minuscule query about their chosen beliefs or particular ideology. And today thousands of years on despite the huge advent, discovery and the advance of science forensic or otherwise, millions are still prepared and equipped to fall or kill in the name of their God, their Holy Scriptures, their messengers, their prophets and their faith’.”
― Cal Sarwar

“I was about to begin the prayer when a Franj threw himself upon me, seized me, and turned my face to the East, telling me, 'That's how you pray!”
― Usamah ibn Munqidh

“In the light of the evidence it is hard to believe that most crusaders were motivated by crude materialism. Given their knowledge and expectations and the economic climate in which they lived, the disposal of assets to invest in the fairly remote possibility of settlement in the East would have been a stupid gamble. It makes much more sense to suppose, in so far as one can generalize about them, that they were moved by an idealism which must have inspired not only them but their families. Parents, brothers and sisters, wives and children had to face a long absence and must have worried about them: in 1098 Countess Ida of Boulogne made an endowment to the abbey of St Bertin 'for the safety of her sons, Godfrey and Baldwin, who have gone to Jerusalem'.83 And they and more distant relatives — cousins, uncles and nephews - were prepared to endow them out of the patrimonial lands. I have already stressed that no one can treat the phenomenal growth of monasticism in this period without taking into account not only those who entered the communities to be professed, but also the lay men and women who were prepared to endow new religious houses with lands and rents. The same is true of the crusading movement. Behind many crusaders stood a large body of men and women who were prepared to sacrifice interest to help them go. It is hard to avoid concluding that they were fired by the opportunity presented to a relative not only of making a penitential pilgrimage to Jerusalem but also of fighting in a holy cause. For almost a century great lords, castellans and knights had been subjected to abuse by the Church. Wilting under the torrent of invective and responding to the attempts of churchmen to reform their way of life in terms they could understand, they had become perceptibly more pious. Now they were presented by a pope who knew them intimately with the chance of performing a meritorious act which exactly fitted their upbringing and devotional needs and they seized it eagerly.

But they responded, of course, in their own way. They were not theologians and were bound to react in ways consonant with their own ideas of right and wrong, ideas that did not always respond to those of senior churchmen. The emphasis that Urban had put on charity - love of Christian brothers under the heel of Islam, love of Christ whose land was subject to the Muslim yoke - could not but arouse in their minds analogies with their own kin and their own lords' patrimonies, and remind them of their obligations to avenge injuries to their relatives and lords. And that put the crusade on the level of a vendetta. Their leaders, writing to Urban in September 1098, informed him that 'The Turks, who inflicted much dishonour on Our Lord Jesus Christ, have been taken and killed and we Jerusalemites have avenged the injury to the supreme God Jesus Christ.”
― Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading

“It is clear that the crusade imposed on its participants extraordinary stresses. In an alien environment they experienced not only the perils of warfare, but also inflation, poverty, starvation, disease and death. They were often frightened and homesick. The knights among them were humiliated as they lost status without their arms and horses. Most of the leaders had nagging financial worries. It is not hard to understand their obsession with horses and their desire for loot.”
― Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading

“Solemn three-day fasts, which were instituted by Adhemar of Le Puy, were decreed after an earthquake which took place on 30 December 1097, before the battle of Antioch on 28 June 1098, before an ordeal undergone by Peter Bartholomew on 8 April 1099 and before the procession round Jerusalem on 8 July 1099. These fasts certainly made an impression on the crusaders; they could hardly have failed to have done so, since they can only have made their hunger worse. It was reported that during their fast at Antioch Turks came up to walls with loaves of white bread, with which they tempted and mocked the starving men within. The achievement of the crusaders becomes even more remarkable — in fact it is quite incredible - when one considers that soldiers already weakened by starvation, who certainly appreciated die importance of taking food before battle since they took care to give their horses extra rations, deliberately fasted before their more important engagements. One wonders how they managed to fight at all.”
― Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading

“For even the high lifted and chivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two thousand miles of land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious perquisites by the way. Had they been strictly held to their one final and romantic object—that final and romantic object, too many would have turned from in disgust.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“In the space of eighteen months three of the most renowned cities of the Arab world - Tripoli, Beirut, and Saida - had been taken and sacked, their inhabitants massacred or deported, their emirs, qadis[judges], and experts on religious law killed or forced into exile, their mosques profaned.”
― Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes

“If you think me weak, bring forth your champion and let me do battle with him.
And kill in that childish way of the Franks? Full of pomp and bravado? We are masters of death here. We do not play at it. - Ware & Sinan”
― Iris Johansen, Lion's Bride

“The first Latin up a ladder was Aubery Clements, marshal of France, one of Philip’s leading knights. It was said later among the Christians’ forces that, before climbing the breach, Aubery had called out defiantly: ‘Either I shall die today, or God willing, I will enter Acre.”
― Thomas Asbridge, The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land

“The name of this city much helpeth Jew and Gentile to see the state of peace, for this is called Jerusalem, and that in Canaan hath Christ destroyed: this name should clearly have taught bot h the Hebrews not to look and pray daily for to return to Canaan, and pseduo-catholics not to fight for special holiness there (658-9).”
― Richard Baxter, The Saints' Everlasting Rest

“The Crusades, waged intermittently from 1095 to 1291, but which continued in waves for centuries after that, were military campaigns sanctioned principally by the Roman Catholic Church to reclaim the Holy Land. American students barely learn about the Crusades, but they are essential to understanding the wars of the last decade.”
― Richard Engel, And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East

“There is much in Judeo-Christian doctrine and history that can be used to support a peace system, but it is so far a minor current. The main stream has adopted the violent, dominator mode of late Palestinian Judaism with its foundation in Old Testament holy war. It is a somber fact of history that in the name of Christ men have murdered and condoned murder, tortured women and children, slaughtered in war, and executed each other without remorse. The Crusaders saw Jesus in terms of their own society, that is, as their feudal lord.”
― Kent D. Shifferd, From War to Peace: A Guide to the Next Hundred Years

“The Church is as corrupt as, or more corrupt than, most people. Between the Crusades, the sex scandals over the last few decades, and everything in between, who are they to judge? That’s right: no one. They are far from perfect. Like us. But they keep trying. And they do it in a way that is simple, dependable. Familiar. And that should be worth something to someone who says they are good or are trying to be but who is in actuality bad.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“Not surprisingly, the crusaders developed an intense hatred of Greek fire. One unfortunate Turkish emir thus paid a heavy price when wounded in a skirmish beside a Frankish siege tower. He had been carrying a container of Greek fire, hoping to destroy the engine, but now a Latin knight ‘stretched him out on the ground, emptying the contents of the phial on his private parts, so that his genitals were burned’.”
― Thomas Asbridge, The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land

“The Lionheart had arrived.”
― Thomas Asbridge, The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land

“The once fashionable myth that crusaders were self-serving, disinherited, land-hungry younger sons must be discarded. Crusading was instead an activity that could bring spiritual and material rewards, but was in the first instance both an intimidating and extremely costly activity. Devotion inspired Europe to crusade, and in the long years to come the First Crusaders proved time and again that their most powerful weapon was a shared sense of purpose and indestructible spiritual resolution.”
― Thomas Asbridge, The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land

“For we who were Occidentals have now become Orientals. He who was a Roman or a Frank has in this land been made into a Galilean or a Palestinian. He who was of Rheims of Chartres has now become a citizen of Tyre or Antioch.
We have already forgotten the places of our birth; already these are unknown to many of us or not mentioned anymore.

Our relatives and parents join us from time to time, sacrificing. Even though reluctantly, all that they formerly possessed.

Those who were poor in the Occident, God makes rich in this land. Those who had little money there, have countless bezants here, and those who did not have a villa possess here by the gift of God a city.

Therefore, why should one return to the Occident who has found the Orient like this?”
― Fulcher of Chartres, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095-1127

“Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves.”
― Ryan Gosling