Joan of Arc Quotes

Joan of Arc shares bold, heartfelt thoughts on faith, truth and fear that echo a medieval heroine's fierce resolve.

62 quotes

  1. 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.

  2. You say that you are my judge. I do not know if you are! But I tell you that you must take good care not to judge me wrongly, because you will put yourself in great danger. I warn you, so that if God punishes you for it, I would have done my duty by telling you!

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

  4. About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they're just one thing, and we shouldn't complicate the matter.

  5. If I am not [(in the state of grace)], may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.

  6. It is true I wished to escape; and so I wish still; is not this lawful for all prisoners?

  7. I do not accept such a prohibition, if ever I do escape, no one shall reproach me with having broken or violated my faith, not having given my word to any one, whosoever it may be.

  8. I learned to spin and to sew; in sewing and spinning I fear no woman in Rouen.

  9. Pass that by [Passez outre]. I was thirteen when I had a Voice from God for my help and guidance. The first time that I heard this Voice, I was very much frightened; it was mid-day, in the summer, in my father's garden. I had not fasted the day before. I heard this Voice to my right, towards the Church; rarely do I hear it without its being accompanied also by a light. This light comes from the same side as the Voice. Generally it is a great light. Since I came into France I have often heard this Voice.

  10. It had borne the burden; it was only right that it should have the honor.

  11. What I said was: 'Go boldly among the English,' and I went among them, too!

  12. The poor folk gladly came to me, for I did them no unkindness, but helped them as much as I could.

  13. Everything I have said or done is in the hands of God. I commit myself to Him! I certify to you that I would do or say nothing against the Christian faith.

  14. Ha! You take great care to put down in your trial everything that is against me, but you will not write down anything that is for me!

  15. I am a good Christian, properly baptized and I will die... a good Christian.

  16. I came from God. There is nothing more for me to do here! Send me back to God, from Whom I came!

  17. Most sweet Lord, in honor of Your Holy Passion, I implore You, if You love me, to instruct me in what I am to say to these churchmen. As regards to my clothes, I fully understand the order by which I accepted them, but I do not know how I am to set them aside. In this, may it please You to teach me.

  18. Truly, if you were to tear me limb from limb and separate my soul from my body, I would not say anything more. If I did say anything, afterwards I would always declare that you made me say it by force!

  19. And if I were condemned and brought to the place of judgment and I saw the torch lit and the faggots ready, and the executioner ready to kindle the fire, and if I were within the fire, yet I would say nothing else and I would maintain unto death what I have said in this trial!

  20. Through His Saints, God informed me of His great sorrow for the treason that I had committed by signing the abjuration. To save my life I betrayed Him and in so doing I damned myself!

  21. My Voices have since told me that I did a great evil in declaring that what I had done was wrong. All that I said and revoked that Thursday, I did for fear of the fire!

  22. I saw them with these very eyes, as well as I see you.

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

  24. Take heart and come on! I will not fly away.

  25. I fear nothing, except treason.

  26. You touch them! Your touch will do them as much good as mine.

  27. In God's name, Count, you mock me! Ransom? How you jest. You have neither the will nor the power to do so!

  28. I know well that these English will put me to death, because they think that after I'm dead, they will win the Kingdom of France. But even if there were hundred thousand more Godons than there are now, still they will never have the Kingdom!

  29. Alas! Am I to be so horribly and cruelly treated? Alas! That my body, clean and whole, which has never been corrupted, should this day be consumed and burned to ashes! Ah! I would far rather have my head chopped off seven times over, than to be burned!

  30. Alas! Had I been in the Church prison, to which I submitted myself, and been guarded by the Clergy instead of my enemies, as I was promised, this misfortune would not have come to me! Ah! I appeal to God, the Great Judge, for the great injuries done to me!

  31. Bishop, I die because of you!

  32. Rouen! Rouen! Must I die here? Ah, Rouen, I fear you will have to suffer for my death!

  33. I ask you priests of God, to please say a Mass for my soul's salvation.

  34. I beg all of you standing here to forgive me the harm that I may have done you. Please pray for me.

  35. Good Brother Martin, I thank you for comforting me, but you must leave this place... now.

  36. My Voices did come from God and everything that I have done was by God's order.

  37. Hold the crucifix up before my eyes so I may see it until I die.

  38. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!

  39. I fear nothing, for God is with me.

  40. Jehanne... If you come from God, I do not fear you ... if you come from the Devil, I fear you even less.

  41. Joan was a being so uplifted from the ordinary run of mankind that she finds no equal in a thousand years. She embodied the natural goodness and valour of the human race in unexampled perfection. Unconquerable courage, infinite compassion, the virtue of the simple, the wisdom of the just, shone forth in her. She glorifies as she freed the soil from which she sprang.

  42. God forgive us: we have burned a saint.

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

  44. All battles are first won or lost, in the mind.

  45. [Before being burned at the stake for her faith:] Hold the cross high so I may see it through the flames.

  46. In God's name let us go on bravely.

  47. Even little children repeat that oftentimes people are hanged for having told the truth.

  48. If I said that God did not send me, I should condemn myself; truly God did send me.

  49. Even if the committee carried the message in the exact words with no words missing, but left out the persuasion of gesture, the supplicating tone, and the beseeching looks which inform the words and give them life, where then were the power of the arguments and whom would it convince?

  50. I saw them with my bodily eyes as clearly as I see you. And when they departed, I used to weep and wish they would take me with them.

  51. It is true that the king has made a truce with the duke of Burgundy for fifteen days and that the duke is to turn over the city of Paris at the end of fifteen days. Yet you should not marvel if I do not enter that city so quickly.

  52. 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.

  53. Every man gives his life for what he believes. Every woman gives her life for what she believes. Sometimes people believe in little or nothing, and so they give their lives to little or nothing. One life is all we have, and we live it as we believe in living it…and then it’s gone. But to surrender who you are and to live without belief is more terrible than dying – even more terrible than dying young.

  54. Do you know whether or not you are in God's grace? Joan: If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.

  55. Do you smell something burning or is it me?

  56. If I am not, may God place me there; if I am, may God so keep me. I should be the saddest in all the world if I knew that I were not in the grace of God. But if I were in a state of sin, do you think the Voice would come to me? I would that every one could hear the Voice as I hear it.

  57. Hope in God. If you have good hope and faith in Him, you shall be delivered from your enemies.

  58. If I be not in a state of grace, I pray God place me in it; if I be in it, I pray God keep me so.

  59. King of England, and you, duke of Bedford, who call yourself regent of the kingdom of France... settle your debt to the king of Heaven; return to the Maiden, who is envoy of the king of Heaven, the keys to all the good towns you took and violated in France.

  60. It is better to be alone with God. His friendship will not fail me, nor His counsel, nor His love. In His strength, I will dare and dare and dare until I die.

  61. The angels are as perfect in form as they are in spirit.

  62. Even though I saw the executioner and the fire, I could not say anything but what I have said.