A Tweet from Tim Fargo reminded me of a collection of leadership quotes I put together years ago, and of the digging I did on one particular quote urging action rather than capitulation:
https://twitter.com/alphabetsuccess/status/657054791672176640
That was the quote I got to, but it’s only attributed to to Zapata so far as I know. I started with the quote cited to Franklin Roosevelt’s speech when he got an honorary Doctor of Laws from Oxford in 1941, when Britain badly needed such inspiration to fight on, in a war for freedom in which the U.S. was not yet actively engaged:
We, too, born to freedom, and believing in freedom, are willing to fight to maintain freedom. We, and all others who believe as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), upon receiving the degree of Doctor of Civil Law from Oxford University, June 19, 1941; special convocation ceremony held at Harvard University, with FDR’s remarks delivered by secretary to the President, Major General Edwin M. Watson
One of a set of ten postcards printed by the Spanish Red Cross, the subjects shown, favor the republican cause. | Spanish. | Wolfsonian Exhibit: Library Vestibule Complement to: Revolutionary Tides, the Art of the Political Poster, 1914-1989; February 25 – August 24, 2006. [Untranslated from Spanish:] Dolores Ibarruri (Pasionaria): Representante de Asturias en el Parlamento de España y figura destacadísima entre las mujeres de la Revolución; Spain Cruz Roja. | Garcia, A. (illustrator.) | Edit. R. Molero (publisher)
It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
Dolores Ibårruri, “La Pasionaria” (1895-1989), Speech in Paris, September 3, 1936
Checking that one out, I found a reference to Mexico’s revolutionary Zapata, whose work was likely familiar to the Spanish Republicans.
Mejor morir a pie que vivir en rodillas.
Men of the South! It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!Emiliano Zapata (c. 1877-1919), attributed
That’s as far as I took it 20 years ago. Can we get a better attribution, or find Zapata’s likely inspiration, if there is one?
Mexico revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, studio portrait perhaps in 1914. Wikipedia image
N.B.: Looked for a photo of FDR at Oxford, but quickly discovered he was nowhere near England on June 19, 1941 — hadn’t thought he would be with the Battle of Britain not really over. Found references to Watson’s delivering of the speech at Harvard, but little else. Good people at the FDR Library’s Pare Lorentz Center confirm that FDR was at the White House the entire day. There’s a story there, about the awarding of the degree.
Update 2017: It was not George Washington.
Especially in 2017, would you do us the favor of saying in comments how you got to this article? Thank you.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Emporer Constantine originally said “I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees” in defense of his Christianity, approx. 312. Everyone from Francois -Noel Gracchus Babeuf to Emiliano Zapata Salazar has been credited with originally saying this famous statement.
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“I’d rather die standing, than live on my knees, begging please.” From Shania Twain.
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Thank you, Mr. Ehlers. This may be the ultimate source.
See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856470
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This is a very ‘inspirational’ quote, and right up there with the sound of ‘drums’ and ‘pipes’ playing whilst soldiers go to their glory…or their death! Perhaps the very first versions of ‘psych-ops to get soldiers ‘in the mood’ to fight, and die? However, I think I was the one to first quote this, after reading this quote, and travelling back through time to say this at some point in the past. I have however not quite done this yet, as I have not got access to time travel, but it IS on my bucket list, so may happen in the future! Oh, the joys and the paradox of time travel! Lol! Somebody should write a book or do a movie about it! Lol!
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The phrase “better that we should die on our feet rather than live on our knees” was spoken by François-Noël Gracchus Babeuf in his defence of the Conspiracy of Equals in April 1797.
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I’ve always loved this quote. I think of it when I am depressed with anxiety. It helps me to feel brave! I love that quote from Mussolini (too bad it had to come from his mouth) I can’t quote him. My family fought to overthrow him and we lost 4 members of our family in the process but the ones that slipped out of Italy in the cover of the night have instilled an absolute hatred for that man. As I said it’s a shame because it is a great quote.
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Another cite to seek!
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Actually the first to say it was Otto I; German King & Holy Roman Emperor from the mid 10th Century prior to a battle with against the Hungarian hordes. I’m certain Zapata probably found inspiration through recycling it.
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Interesting view. You’ve got some good history books to recommend?
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Die on your feet than live on your knees a quote by
FDR?
Seriously? ROFL
Roosevelt & Churchill sold Eastern Europe into slavery to Stalin
and earlier FDR KNEW the Japanese would attack
Pearl Harbor
His body was not the only twisted about him
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Thank you for this article. I got to it through a Google search.
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S. J. Cobb is correct, and I guess I need to make that more explicit. In checking the accuracy of a quote, one runs into the brick wall that in accepting a degree from Oxford University, which is in England, FDR did not make the trip at that time.
From there it gets weird. The speech was made in Massachusetts, and not by FDR at all. There is no doubt they are FDR’s remarks, and since he didn’t have a significant speech writing staff, we can be quite sure FDR himself had a large role in creating the remarks.
I hope readers will use the links and track down the whole history in any search to verify. The text from the FDR library was not available when I wrote this, as I recall. Happy to see it’s there now.
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The attribution to FDR needs a bit of explanation. You are correct that FDR was not in England at that time in 1941. This speech was not delivered in the UK at all but in Cambridge, MA and not by FDR. In fact, Major Gen Edwin M. Watson spoke on behalf of FDR there. I am sure that FDR edited and approved this speech even if most of it may be the product of one of his speech writers. A type script of the subject speech can be found at:
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/msf/msf01432
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Mussolini was once quoted as saying, “Better live one day as a lion than 10,000 years as a sheep.”
When we had pet chickens in the backyard, I would feed them from the back deck, and they would all gather round. I would address them like Mussolini, and say, “Better to live one day as lion, then 10,000 years as a chicken!”
They weren’t too impressed.
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[…] Dolores Ibárruri, during her speeches and broadcasts in the Spanish Civil War. More discussion here. Alternate […]
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Ran across the page while searching for more info on the quotation for my own database (https://wist.info/zapata-emiliano/42282/). It remains firmly in the “Attributed” camp for Zapata (even if others had voiced it before), without any particular citation or recorded instance of his saying it having come up.
You did provide me some good additional quotations to note down. Thanks!
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One of those things lost to history, but it is clever and inspiring and apparently oft repeated.
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“For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one’s life.” Prometheus Bound 480 BC?
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Zapata created that quote during the Mexican Revolution.I studied in Mexico and Spain.
The Spanish used it after and Rosevelt copied it.
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Andre, I’ve linked to the sources I used in the piece above.
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Hi all, i’m doing a bit of research regarding this saying as i was looking of getting a tattoo with this wording. i suppose to each it has a different meaning. i’ve asked a few questions and names like Zapata, Che Guevara and Roosevelt was mentioned. the oldest association with this saying apparently was the Vikings. however i still need to trace any evidence confirming this.
Andre
Cape Town
South Africa
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Got a link to Midnight Oil? (Not all of us are up on . . . current or past bands . . . )
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Fun fact: this line is repeated in the pre-chorus of Midnight Oil’s “The Power and the Passion,” to great effect.
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[…] Ed Darrell: “Who said it: Better to Die on Your Feet than Live on Your Knees?“ […]
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[…] in this world is he will die on his feet before he will live on his knees.” Tough words. Spanish Civil War. Not George Washington. I particularly hate it when people make up stuff to put in the mouths of great men. Washington […]
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Husain ibn Ali (626–680 AD), the grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, the son of ‘Alī and Fātimah, as well as the third Shī‘ah Imām. said:
See: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Husayn_ibn_Ali
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Rida, got any links, any citations to back that up? Hussain has been suggested before, but no one could find any documentation.
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Imam Hussain (A.S) is the one who said “It’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees”
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Even Ronald Reagan sorta got in on the act.
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See Aeschylus, “Agamemnon” from “The Oresteia,” line 1383. This is in Robert Fagles’s translation published by Penguin Classics, copyright 1977.
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Got a link to the Irish saying it? Would love to include the reference if you have one.
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The Irish always said it
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[…] in this world is he will die on his feet before he will live on his knees.” Tough words. Spanish Civil War. Not George Washington. I particularly hate it when people make up stuff to put in the mouths of great men. Washington […]
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[…] or even dangerous. The forces arrayed against the Jewish nation are great. But as Emiliano Zapata (maybe) said, better to die on your feet than live on your […]
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Source, galherz?
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Imam Hussain (as) said this in the battle of Karbala, in 680 AD.
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BUT, I can find no confirmation Euripides ever put that statement down, Eva. Closest I’ve found looked like a claim it came from “Cyclops,” but it’s not in that text.
I wonder where Euripides would have said that?
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Thanks, Eva! Got a specific writing to link it to?
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Euripides (ca. 480 BC–406 BC) wrote “I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”
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Might be. I’m content with the original attribution to Zapata, interested it spread to Spain 20 years later, and tickled Roosevelt invoked it.
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It might be one of those sayings that has been around a while. Its origins might be murky. People trying to get others to die for their cause are not known to be concerned about logic or ethics.
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