Joan of Arc

It is our harsh fate on earth that body and soul should be so closely bound together; that the soul should have to drag the body along, should be exposed to its vicissitudes, should even respond to them. This primal curse has always weighed heavily upon us; but how much more heavily under a religious law which compels us to endure this outrageous condition; which will not permit our honor, when it is imperiled, to save itself by casting aside the body, and seeking refuge in the world of the spirit!

The boys were amazed that I could make such a poem as that out of my own head, and so was I, of course, it being as much a surprise to me as it could be to anybody, for I did not know that it was in me. If any had asked me a single day before if it was in me, I should have told them frankly no, it was not.That is the way with us; we may go on half of our life not knowing such a thing is in us, when in reality it was there all the time, and all we needed was something to turn up that would call for it.

Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth.

I was in my thirteenth year when I heard a voice from God to help me govern my conduct. And the first time I was very much afraid.

I would rather die than do something which I know to be a sin, or to be against God's will.

Of the love or hatred God has for the English, I know nothing, but I do know that they will all be thrown out of France, except those who die there.

If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.

Since God had commanded it, it was necessary that I do it. Since God commanded it, even if I had a hundred fathers and mothers, even if I had been a King's daughter, I would have gone nevertheless.

Get up tomorrow early in the morning, and earlier than you did today, and do the best that you can. Always stay near me, for tomorrow I will have much to do and more than I ever had, and tomorrow blood will leave my body above the breast.

I am not afraid. ... I was born to do this.

Act and God will act.