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You can try to kill me a million times more but you cannot kill soul. Truth was, is, and will always be. You have beaten me, broken my neck, knocked my teeth out. You've drugged me for years, dragging me up and down prison hallways, laying my head on every chopping block you've got in this state, chained me, burnt me, but you cannot defeat me. All you can do is destroy yourselves with your own judgments.

Charles Manson#7

JusticeTruthResilienceSuffering

About this quote

What does it mean?
The speaker claims that physical suffering cannot destroy the soul or truth, and that opponents are ultimately destroying themselves through their actions.
In plain terms
You can hurt my body but not my soul, and your hatred only harms you.
What can you take from it?
Enduring hardship does not mean you are defeated.

Where it applies

  • adversity
  • legal persecution
  • personal hardship

Putting it to work

  • affirmation
  • resistance

Questions to consider

  • What gives you resilience in times of suffering?
  • How do you define truth?

Another view

The claim of moral superiority may not align with actual actions.

More from Charles Manson

  1. Well, we're our own prisons. We're each our own wardens and we do our own times. We get stuck in our own little trips and we kind a judge ourselves the way we …

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  2. From behind the time locks of courtrooms and from the worlds of darkness, I did let loose devils and demons with the power of scorpions to torment.

    Permalink to quote #8
  3. I never thought I was normal, never tried to be normal. Normal runs in that little rut down there. I don't know nothing about being normal. I've been in jail a…

    Permalink to quote #5

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