Only The Albanian Goes On Forever...

These people, living between Christians and Mohammedans, and not being skilled in controversy, declare that they are utterly unable to judge which religion is best, but to be certain of not entirely rejecting the truth, they very prudently follow both. They go to the mosques on Fridays, and to the church on Sundays, saying, for their excuse, that they are sure of protection from the true Prophet; but which that is, they are not able to determine in this world.
~M. W. Montague 

Muslim's although are not very strict about their religion, and have a tolerance for the Christians, as the Christians have for them, that is not found elsewhere-certainly not in the Near East. One will find the Christians using a prayer rug, and Muslim's observing Roman Catholic feast days. But the Albanian is first of all an Albanian and no religion interferes with his own standard of right and wrong
~Lands and Peoples: "The World in Color" Greece-Albania-Balkans, 1940, page 53 

"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 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

"The Albanians have been born to resist and disobey."
- Dursam Bey, during the second siege of Kruja 


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

"...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)

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 


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

- Edith Durham 

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