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Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

62 quotes

“The law of silence: Speak little. Say only what you must. Speak only when necessary. Your oratory should be deeds, not words. You accomplish: let others talk.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Politician's goal is to build a fortune, ours is to build our homeland flowering and strong. For her we will work and we will build. For her we will make each Romanian a hero, ready to fight, ready to sacrifice, ready to die.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We wear the clothes and embrace the forms of democracy. Are they worth anything? We don't know yet. But we do know one thing. We know it for sure. That some of the largest and most civilized nations of Europe have discarded those clothes and have acquired new ones. Did they get rid of them forever? Other nations are doing their best to dispose of them and to get new ones also. Why? Have all nations gone mad? Are the Rumanian politicians the only wise men in the world? Somehow I doubt it.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Democracy cannot wield authority, because it cannot enforce its decisions. A party cannot move against itself, against its members who engage in scandalous malfeasance, who rob and steal, because it is afraid of losing its members. Nor can it move against its adversaries, because in so doing it would risk exposure of its own wrongdoings and shady business.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Democracy serves big business. Because of the expensive, competitive character of the multiparty system, democracy requires ample funds. It therefore naturally becomes the servant of the big international Jewish financiers, who enslave her by paying her. In this manner, a nation's fate is placed in the hands of a clique of bankers.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the multitude does not understand or understands only with difficulty several laws that are immediately necessary to its life, how can it be imagined by someone that it -which in a democracy must be led through itself-could understand the most difficult natural laws; or that it would know intuitively the most subtle and imperceptible norms of human leadership, norms that project beyond itself, its life, its life's necessities, or which do not apply directly to it but to a more superior entity, the nation?”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For making bread, shoes, ploughs, farming, running a streetcar, one must be specialized. Is there no need for specialization when it comes to the most demanding leadership, that of a nation? Does one not have to possess certain qualities?”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A people is not capable of governing itself. It ought to be governed by its elite. Namely, through that category of men born within its bosom who possess certain aptitudes and specialties. Just as the bees raise their "queen" a people must raise its elite. The multitude likewise, in its needs, appeals to its elite, the wise of the state.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here are two opposite ideas, one containing truth, the other the lie. Truth-of which there can be but one-is sought. The question is put to a vote. One idea polls 10,000 votes, the other 10,050. Is it possible that 50 votes more or less determine or deny truth? Truth depends neither on majority nor minority; it has its own laws and it succeeds, as has been seen, against all majorities, even though they be crushing.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Can the people choose its elite? Why then do soldiers not choose the best general? In order to choose, this collective jury would have to know very well: a) The laws of strategy, tactics, organization, etc. and b) To what extent the individual in question conforms through aptitudes and knowledge to these laws. No one can choose wisely without this knowledge.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That is why we believe that the leading elite of a country cannot be chosen by the multitude. To try to select this elite is like determining by majority vote who the poets, writers, mechanics, aviators or athletes of a country ought to be.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Democracy elects men totally lacking in scruples, without any morals; those who will pay better, thus those with a higher power of corruption; magicians, charlatans, demagogues, who will excel in their fields during the electoral campaign. Several good men would be able to slip through among them, even politicians of good faith. But they would be the slaves of the former.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Romania, particularly since the war, democracy has created for us, through this system of elections, a "national elite" of Romano-Jews, based not on bravery, nor love of country, nor sacrifice, but on betrayal of country, the satisfaction of personal interest, the bribe, the traffic of influence, the enrichment through exploitation and embezzlement, thievery, cowardice, and intrigue to knock down any adversary. This "national elite," if it continues to lead this country, will bring about the destruction of the Romanian state.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Therefore, in the last analysis, the problem facing the Romanian people today, on which all others depend, is the substitution of this fake elite with a real national one based on virtue, love and sacrifice for country, justice and love for the people, honesty, work, order, discipline, honest dealing, and honor.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But I repeat my question: "Who indicates everyone's place within an elite and who sizes up everyone? Who establishes the selection and consecrates the members of the new elite?" I answer: "The previous elite.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On what must an elite be founded? a) Purity of soul. b) Capacity of work and creativity. c) Bravery. d) Tough living and permanent warring against difficulties facing the nation. e) Poverty, namely voluntary renunciation of amassing a fortune. f) Faith in God. g) Love.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The new Romanian elite, as well as any other elite in the world, must be based on the principle of social selection. In other words, a category of people endowed with certain qualities which they then cultivate, is naturally selected from the nation's body, namely from the large healthy mass of peasantry and workingmen, which is permanently bound to the land and the country. This category of people becomes the national elite meant to lead our nation.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The type of man who lives nowadays in the Romanian political scene, I have already found in history: under his rule, nations died and states were destroyed.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The young man who joins a political party is a traitor to his generation and to his race.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Romania is dying because of a lack of men, not a lack of programs.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The law of honor: Go along only on the paths of honor. Fight, and never be a coward. Leave the path of infamy to others. Better to fall in an honorable fight than win by infamy.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We shall create a spiritual atmosphere, a moral atmosphere, in which the heroic man may be born and on which he can thrive. This hero will lead our people on the road of its greatness.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we speak of the Rumanian nation, we refer not only to the Rumanians currently living on the same territory, with the same past and same future, the same habits, the same language, the same interests. When we speak of the Rumanian nation we refer to all Rumanians, dead or alive, who have lived on this land of ours from the beginnings of history and will live on it also in the future.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A people becomes aware of its existence when it becomes aware of its entirety, not only of its component parts and their individual interests.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Its culture: the fruit of its life, the product of its own efforts in thought and art. This culture is not international. It is the expression of the national genius, of the blood. The culture is international in its brilliance but national in origin. Someone made a fine comparison: bread and wheat may be internationally consumed, but they always bear the imprint of the soil from which they came.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But the most important of all is the spiritual patrimony, because it alone bears the seal of eternity, it alone transcends all times. The ancient Greeks are with us today not because of their physiques, no matter how athletic--those are only ashes now--nor because of their material wealth, if they had such, but because of their culture.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A nation lives forever through its concepts, honor, and culture. It is for these reasons that the rulers of nations must judge and act not only on the basis of physical and material interests of the nation but on the basis of the nation's historical honor, of the nation's eternal interests. Thus: not bread at all costs, but honor at all costs.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The question may thus be asked: What are the norms for international behavior? The nations' animal instincts? The tiger in them? Do the laws of the fishes in the sea or of the beasts in the forest apply?”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Are we going to be the weak and cowardly generation that will relinquish, under threats, the Rumanian destiny and renounce our national mission?”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is it not frightening, that we, the Romanian people, no longer can produce fruit? That we do not have a Romanian culture of our own, of our people, of our blood, to shine in the world side by side with that of other peoples? That we be condemned today to present ourselves before the world with products of Jewish essence? That today, at this moment, when the world expects that the Romanian people appear to show the fruit of our national blood and genius, we present ourselves with an infection of Judaic cultural caricature?”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Consider the attitude our great Vasile Conta held in the Chamber in 1879. Fifty years earlier the Romanian philosopher demonstrated with unshakeable scientific arguments, framed in a system of impeccable logic, the soundness of racial truths that must lie at the foundation of the national state...”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We do not remember that our people - during our sad but proud Romanian history - at any time tolerated being dishonoured. Our fields are full of the dead, but not of cowards. Today we are free men with the consciousness of our rights. Slaves we are not and never were. We receive death, but not humiliation. Rest assured, we have sufficient moral strength left to find an honourable exit from a life we cannot support without honour and dignity.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If Christian mysticism and its goal, ecstasy, is the contact of man with God through a leap from human nature to divine nature, national mysticism is nothing other than the contact of man and crowds with the soul of their race through the leap which these forces make from the world of personal and material interests into the outer world of race. Not through the mind, since this anyone can do, but by living with their soul.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We will kill in ourselves a world in order to build another, a higher one reaching to the heavens.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Legionaries have been called by God to sound the trumpet for the resurrection of Romania after centuries of darkness and oppression.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This moment of brotherhood in the same faith and of pledging to fight for our Christian country against the cheating Judaic hordes, will never be forgotten. We who were fighting each other but yesterday, were now embracing. The orientation guidelines in our (student) meetings were the writings of our national geniuses Bogdan Petriceicu Hajdeu, Vasile Conta, Mihail Eminescu, Vasile Alecsandri, etc. but especially the writings and lectures of Professor Cuza, the writings of Professor Paulescu, the lessons in national education of Professor Gavanescul.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have studied the Jewish problem scientifically. Essentially it is an abnormal situation that the Jews should live among other races, whereby they violate the great natural law that every race shall live in its own country.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In one year I learned as much about anti-Semitism as would be enough for three mens' lifetimes. For you cannot wound the sacred convictions of a people, what their heart loves and respects, without causing deep pain and shedding the heart's blood. It was 17 years ago, and my heart bleeds yet.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is, among all those various parts of the world who serve their people, a kinship of sympathy, as there is such a kinship among those who labour for the destruction of peoples.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Because we have political parties led by Romanians, through which Judaism speaks ; Romanian papers, written by Romanians, through which the Jew and his interests speak ; Romanian lecturers, thinking, writing and speaking Hebraically, but in the Romanian language.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mussolini has destroyed communism and Freemasonry; he implicitly declared war upon Judaism too.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Jewish problem is no utopia, but a grave life and death problem for the Romanian nation, the country's leaders grouped by political parties becoming more and more like toys in the hands of the Judaic manipulators.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A country has the Jews it deserves. Just as mosquitoes can thrive and settle only in swamps, likewise the former can only thrive in the swamps of our sins.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Jews are our enemies and as such they hate, poison, and exterminate us. Romanian leaders who cross into their camp are worse than enemies: they are traitors. The first and fiercest punishment ought to fall first on the traitor, second on the enemy. If I had but one bullet and I were faced by both an enemy and a traitor, I would let the traitor have it.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Legionary life is beautiful, not because of riches, partying or the acquisition of luxury, but because of the noble comradeship which binds all Legionaries in a sacred brotherhood of struggle.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wherever the Legionary’s hand and soul show up, a garden appears.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fascism, without neglecting the other sides of social life, is especially concerned with the State, Hitlerism, without neglecting all its other main preoccupations, gives special attention to race. The Legionary Movement embodies something deeper, being concerned with the soul. In other words, Fascism’s outer shape would correspond to a man’s clothing, Hitlerism gives precedence to what we find underneath the clothing, meaning the body, while the preoccupations of the Legionaries go beyond the clothing and the body, reaching deep into the human soul.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Democracy is incapable of perseverance. Since it is shared by political parties that rule for one, two, or three years, it is unable to conceive and carry out plans of longer duration. One party annuls the plans and efforts of the other. What is conceived and built by one party today is destroyed by another tomorrow. In a country in which much has to be built, in which building is indeed the primary historical requirement, this disadvantage of democracy constitutes a true danger. It is a situation similar to that which prevails in an establishment where masters are changed every year, each new master bringing in his own plans, ruining what was done by some, and starting new things, which will in turn be destroyed by tomorrow's masters.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a new form of leadership of states, never encountered yet. I don't know what designation it will be given, but it is a new form. I think that it is based on this state of mind, this state of high national consciousness which, sooner or later, spreads to the periphery of the national organism. It is a state of inner light. What previously slept in the souls of the people, as racial instinct, is in these moments reflected in their consciousness, creating a state of unanimous illumination, as found only in great religious experiences. This state could be rightly called a state of national oecumenicity. A people as a whole reach self-consciousness, consciousness of its meaning and its destiny in the world. In history, we have met in peoples nothing else than sparks, whereas, from this point of view, we have today permanent national phenomena. In this case, the leader is no longer a 'boss' who 'does what he wants', who rules according to 'his own good pleasure': he is the expression of this invisible state of mind, the symbol of this state of consciousness. He does not do what he wants, he does what he has to do. And he is guided, not by individual interests, nor by collective ones, but instead by the interests of the eternal nation, to the consciousness of which the people have attained. In the framework of these interests and only in their framework, personal interests as well as collective ones find the highest degree of normal satisfaction.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I reject republicanism. At the head of races, above the elite, there is Monarchy. Not all monarchs have been good. Monarchy, however, has always been good. The individual monarch must not be confused with the institution of Monarchy, the conclusions drawn from this would be false. There can be bad priests, but this does not mean that we can draw the conclusion that the Church must be ended and God stoned to death. There are certainly weak or bad monarchs, but we cannot renounce Monarchy. The race has a line of life. A monarch is great and good, when he stays on this line ; he is petty and bad, to the extent that he moves away from this racial line of life or he opposes it. There are many lines by which a monarch can be tempted. He must set them all aside and follow the line of the race. Here is the law of Monarchy.”
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source