Quotations about:
    heretic


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These [social questions] have all been kept alive in the cauldron of our agitation, and earned us properly, deservedly, the title of “infidel” and “traitor.” “Infidel” to a church that could be at peace in the presence of sin! “Traitor” to a state that was a magnificent conspiracy against justice.

Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) American abolitionist, orator, social activist
Speech (1857-01-02), 25th Anniversary of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Faneuil Hall, Boston
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As recorded in The Liberator, Vol. 27, No. 2 (1857-01-09), and the National Anti-Slavery Standard, Vol. 17, No. 35 (1857-01-17).

This is the closest to primary source for a variation of a quote more commonly cited to Phillips:

Write on my gravestone: "Infidel, Traitor" -- infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people.”

The earliest I can find this version of the quote in print is in the late 1920s (1927, 1927, 1929) in various Labor / Socialist publications, standing alone as column filler without citation.

Prior to this, I can find examples of a form closer to the one given above:

When I die I wish but two words written on my tombstone -- "Infidel" -- "Traitor." Infidel to a church that can be at peace in the presence of sin; Traitor to a government that is a magnificent conspiracy against justice.

The earliest I find this version is in Oliver Johnson, William Lloyd Garrison and His Time (1879), a quotation from Johnson of a (the same?) speech at Faneuil Hall. It's also mentioned, in whole or in part in:

While it is possible that Phillips used variations of the same quotation on different occasions (as many orators and lecturers of that time and this do), the clustering of dates with versions suggests to me failures of memory (e.g., Johnson), or intentional tweakings of the text (in the 1920s) to prefer more contemporary language or political usage.

Rufus King Noyes (comp.), Views of Religion (1908), is a list of quotations about (and generally critical of) religion, in the format of giving the name, and then the quotation after this. It includes, attributed in this fashion to Phillips:

When I die, I wish but two words written on my tombstone -- "Infidel" and "Traitor."
 

The next quotation -- with its name immediately below the above, is from William Dean Howells. I did find misattributions to this and the longer quote made to Howells, probably from a misreading of this book's format.

As a final note, Phillips' gravestone did not end up including either of those words.

 
Added on 21-Sep-26 | Last updated 21-Sep-26
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Nothing so outrages the feelings of the church as a moral unbeliever — nothing so horrible as a charitable Atheist.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833–1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
“Thomas Paine” (1870)
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Added on 8-Feb-21 | Last updated 8-Feb-21
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That is the whole trouble with being a heretic. One must usually think out everything for oneself.

Aubrey Menen (1912–1989) British writer, novelist, satirist, theatre critic
The Duke of Gallodoro (1952)
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Added on 5-Aug-20 | Last updated 5-Aug-20
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If the man doesn’t believe as we do, we say he is a crank, and that settles it. I mean it does nowadays, because now we can’t burn him.

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator, ch. 53 (1897)
 
Added on 26-Jun-15 | Last updated 24-Jun-15
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Toward no crime have men shown themselves so cold-bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief.

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American diplomat, essayist, poet
Among My Books (1870)
 
Added on 3-Apr-15 | Last updated 3-Apr-15
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The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent. Each of them tacitly claims that “the truth” has already been revealed, and that the heretic, if he is not simply a fool, is secretly aware of “the truth” and merely resists it out of selfish motives.

George Orwell (1903–1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1946-01), “The Prevention of Literature,” Polemic Magazine
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Added on 20-Oct-10 | Last updated 11-Jul-25
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