It was attributed in 1924 to Práxedis G.
Guerrero. According to Ward S. Albro, To Die on
Your Feet: The Life, Times, and Writings of
Práxedis G. Guerrero ix (Texas Christian University Press, 1996):
>Más vale morir de pie que vivir de rodillas (It
>is better to die on your feet than to live on
>your knees). What a heroic statement. My copy of
>The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations attributes
>it to Dolores Ibarruri, "La Pasionaria," the
>Spanish republican activist of the civil war
>era, said to have proclaimed the defiant phrase
>in a speech in Paris, September 3, 1936. We
>Mexicanists know that the statement has long
>been credited to Emiliano Zapata, used to rally
>his "men of the South." Zapata was killed in
>ambush in 1919. A 1924 publication in Mexico,
>however, indicates it was used in print by
>Práxedis G. Guerrero in his efforts to launch a
>revolution against Mexican dictator Porfirio
>Díaz. Guerrero was killed in 1910 in Janos,
>Chihuahua, in the early days of the Mexican
>Revolution. He was 28 years old. He died on his feet.
The publication is Práxedis G. Guerrero,
Artículos literarios y de combate; pensamientos;
crónicas revolucionarios, etc. (México : Grupo
Cultural Ricardo F. Magon, 1924). Its presence in
this work, however, doesn't necessarily mean that
Guerrero wrote it, as Albro notes at pages 134-35:
>Not having access to all the papers he wrote for
>makes it impossible to say with certainty when,
>where, and even if, he wrote all the items in
>the 1924 edition. "It is better to die on your
>feet than to live on your knees," is an idea
>Práxedis lived and died by, and he may well have
>used it in Punto Rojo or one of the earlier
>papers, but that does not mean he originated the
>phrase anymore than Emiliano Zapata, with whom
>it is most identified in Mexico, did. It was not
>in the "Puntos Rojos" collected from the 1910
>Regeneración but it was included in the 1924
>work. It was not far removed from Guerrero's
>closing statement in "Boxer": "We are standing, we will kneel before no power."
Kent Olson
UVA Law Library
kolson@virginia.edu
At 05:30 PM 8/9/2006, Fred Shapiro wrote:
>On Wed, 9 Aug 2006, Ronald Huttner wrote:
>
>>Can anyone give me an authoritative source for
>>the quote, "It is better to die on your feet
>>than to live on your knees." Some tell me that
>>the saying is attributable to the Mexican
>>revolutionary Zapata, but others attribute it
>>to Albert Camus. One of our MPs used the
>>expression in Parliament today, and I am trying to track its origin.
>
>The Yale Book of Quotations, forthcoming in
>October and tracing pretty much all famous
>quotations to their origins as far as is
>possible, has the following for this quote:
>
>It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!
> Dolores Ibarruri, Radio broadcast, 18 July 1936
>
>* It is often claimed that Emiliano Zapata used
>this expression earlier in the century, but
>documentation for Zapata's usage is lacking.
>"Better to die on your feet than live on your
>knees" is mentioned as a Mexican aphorism in
><i>Appleton</i> (Wis.) <i>Post Crescent,</i> 4 June 1925.
>
>Fred Shapiro
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