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Quotes about Arberors!

"The Albanians, these tigers of mountain wars ... have as their religion rebellion. Even their worst warrior is one of the strongest and bravest on the battle-field, just as if he was a knight on the legendary horse. But he has no horse, nor proper weapons for battle. Instead of the horse, he has a lance which strikes as lightning, he has spears who's points are full of posion as the sting of hornets, he has also a wooden bow with some arrows. Furthermore, he is stronger than iron ... "

- Ibn Kemal, Historian of the Turkish court during Skanderbeg's war against the Turks

"The Albanians have been born to resist and disobey."

- Dursam Bey, during the second siege of Kruja

They are strewn with the wreckage of dead Empires–past Powers–only the Albanian "goes on for ever."

- Edith Durham

"They are Nietzsche's over-men, these primitive Albanians — something between kings and tigers."

- Henry Noel Brailsford

"The true history of mankind will be written only when Albanians participate in it's writing."

- Maximilian Lambertz

"The story of the Albanians deserves a study in itself. Attracted by the 'sword, the gold trappings, and the honours, they left their mountains chiefly in order to become soldiers. In the sixteenth century they were to be found in Cyprus, in Venice, in Mantua, in Rome, in Naples, and Sicily, and as far abroad as Madrid, where they went to present their projects and their grievances, to ask for barrels of gunpowder or years of pension, arrogant, imperious, always ready for a fight."

- Nicholas Pappas

"...isn't the Albanian, who, being a slave, did not allow enslavement, freedom-loving? This is a question that could hardly be understood by anyone who has not lived in Albania. The most liberty-loving people in the Balkans is the Albanian people. The Albanian, taken alone, as an individual, is an anarchist by nature. He would brook no bondage let alone on his people, he would not let anything, seen as possibly humiliating, befall his house. The Albanian house stands alone and apart from the rest..."

- Description from a brilliant Bulgarian observer and connoisseur of Albania. (1924)

Albanians are considered untouchable on the slave market because of their strong feelings for honour and the need for revenge.

- Pasha Sulejman the Lightened

They may be only soldiers, but never let them get close to your plate, and don't make them kneel before you, if you don't intend to capitate them.

- Pasha Sulejman the Lightened

For Albania was not fashioned,
Made by God for the Circassians,
Nor for darkskinned Turks and Moors,
But for mountain hawks, those heroes
Whom the world calls the Albanians,
That they keep it for their children
For as long as life continues.

- Gjergj Fishta 1908

I assure you they are Bismarcks — veritable Bismarcks. Some day they will demand, and Europe will have to give them what they ask !

- A Christian Ottoman official speaking to Edith Durham about Albanians

Ah kadale Nikolle, t'vrafte Zoti! Ketu i thone Oso baroti: se s'ké pá Shqíptár me sy, se djeg vehten edhe ty!

- Gjergj Fishta

"The Skipetarë are intact people who conserve the traditions of their ancestors, proud and tidy people of freedom "

- Peter Tassini, ambassador of the Republic of Venice, in 1455

..... Anon from the castle walls
The crescent banner falls,
And the crowd beholds instead,
Like a portent in the sky,
Iskander's banner fly,
The Black Eagle with double head.
And shouts ascend on high
.....'' Long live Scanderbeg.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Scanderbeg exceeds all the officers, ancient and modern, in the conduct of a defensive army. I met him in Turkish history but nowhere else.''

- Major General James Wolfe, commander of the English army at the siege of Quebec, Canada, writting to Lord Sydney

"In the list of heroes, John Hunyadi and Scanderbeg are commonly associated and entitled to our notice since their occupation of arms delayed the ruin of the Greek (Byzantine) Empire. ..... The Albanian prince may justly be praised as a firm and able champion of his national independence. The enthusiasm of chivalry and religion has ranked him with the names of Alexander the Great and Pyrrhus. .....''

- Historian Edmond Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

"To one whom later age has brought to light,
Matchable to the greatest of the great:
Great both in name and great in power and might,
And meriting a mere triumphant feat.
The scourge of Turks, and plague of infidels,
Thy acts, O' Scanderbeg, this volume tells."

- Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser, in his preface to an English translation of Barletius.

"Land of Albania, where Iskander rose,
Theme of the young, and beacon of the wise,
And he, his namesake, whose oft-baffled foes
Shrunk from his deeds of chivalrous emprize.
Land of Albania, let me bend my eyes
On thee, though rugged nurse of savage men!
Where is the foe that ever saw their back? ....."

- Lord Byron in "Child Harold's Pilgrimage"

"The Gueghes are thickset and muscular, the Toskes slender and agile, both strong, vigorous, and perhaps the finest race in Europe."
"The characteristics common to both people are love of independence, love of war, a revengual spirit, mering into ferocity."
"They are wild, plundering, indefatigable soldiers, selling their services and their blood to those who pay them highest; but lively, gay, adventurous, sober, generous and heroic so soon as it concerns the defence of their country, their tribe, or their family."
"They are an iron race, as hard as the rocks they inhabit."

- Lord Byron talking about Albanians

"If you want a hundred Italians to be quiet, shoot one.If you want a hundred Albanians to be quiet, you must shoot ninety-nine."

-Old Albanian Proverb

"The fellows who amuze me are the Albanians. An Albanian on the mash is almost exactly like the medieval swells of the Italian frescoes & the first ones we met quite startled us. They wear the tight-fitting trunk hose made of woolen stuff hooked up the back of the leg. It is white with long black stripes of embroidery down the leg & at the top in front the shirt is pulled through slashes. They are long slim chaps with dandy little moustaches & are most theatrical in effect."

- Edith Durham

"Fierce are Albania's children, yet they lack
Not virtues, were those virtues more mature.
Where is the foe that ever saw their back?
Who can so well the toil of war endure?
Their native fastessnes not more secure
Than they in doubtful time of troublous need:
Their wrath how deadly! but their friendship sure,
When Gratitude or Valour bids them bleed,
Unshaken rushing on where'er their chief may lead."

- Lord Byron

"Ah 'tis an excellent race, and even under old degregation,
Even under hodja and Turk, a nice and natural people."

- quoted by Edith Durham, in High Albania

When spring comes, we will manure the plains of Kosova with the bones of Serbs, for we, Albanians, have suffered too much to forget."

- Isa Boletini, leaving the Ambassadors Conference in London, 1913

"Every country has mafias, the Albanian mafia has countries."

- FBI

"Murdered and like many hogs they had their throats slit by the Albanians."

- End Result of an Ottoman Campaign in Scanderbeg's Albania

We Albanians, be from any religion, are all brothers on our country. We will always be going nice and in peace with each – other, as we are going, we will work together for the prosperity of our nation, and we will protect it with our blood. 

- Hafiz Ibrahim Dalliu