Babak Khorramdin

It is better to live for just a single day as a ruler than to live for forty years as an abject slave.

Babak Khorramdin (795/8—838) was a Iranian revolutionary leader of the Khurramites—a local freedom movement in Azerbaijan fighting the Abbasid Caliphate.

Quotes

Perhaps I shall survive, perhaps not... Wherever I am present or am mentioned, I am the king.

• Perhaps I shall survive, perhaps not. I have been known as the commander. Wherever I am present or am mentioned, I am the king.
  • Babak Khorramdin's letter to his son, rejecting the caliph’s amnesty message, quoted by Al-Tabari, cited in "BĀBAK ḴORRAMI" at Encyclopaedia Iranica

• [...] It is better to live for just a single day as a ruler than to live for forty years as an abject slave.
  • Babak Khorramdin's letter to his son, rejecting the caliph’s amnesty message, quoted by Al-Tabari, edited by C. E. Bosworth, History of al-Tabari Vol. 33, The: Storm and Stress along the Northern Frontiers of the 'Abbasid Caliphate: The Caliphate of al-Mu'tasim A.D. 833-842/A.H. 218-227