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I was brought up to believe that a person must be rescued when drowning, regardless of religion and nationality.

— Irena Sendler

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More quotes by Irena Sendler

Over a half-century has passed since the hell of the Holocaust, but its spectre still hangs over the world and doesn’t allow us to forget.

Letter to the Polish Senate (2007)

Heroes do extraordinary things. What I did was not an extraordinary thing. It was normal.

I am the only person still alive of that rescuing group but I want everyone to know that, while I was coordinating our efforts, we were about twenty to twenty five people. I did not do it alone.

I still carry the marks on my body of what those "German supermen" did to me then. I was sentenced to death.

Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory.

Letter to the Polish Senate (2007)

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Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

William James The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

Thomas Jefferson Letter to Peter Carr (1787)

I had never doubted my own abilities, but I was quite prepared to believe that "the world" would decline to recognize them.

Colin Wilson Postscript to the Outsider (1967)

Love is the active, working principle in all true faith. It is its very soul, without which it is dead. "Faith works by love."

Jonathan Edwards Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Irena Sendler (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.