Margaret

 Dear Valeria,

Peace!

The Right Honourable Margaret Bondfield (Justice of the Peace)

Wilma

 Dear Valeria,

“Europeans brought with them the view that men were the absolute head of households, and women were to be submissive to them. It was then that the role of women in Cherokee society began to decline. One of the new values Europeans brought to the Cherokees was a lack of balance and harmony between men and women. It was what we today call sexism. This was not a Cherokee concept. Sexism was borrowed from Europeans.”

Regards,

Wilma Mankiller

María

Querida Valeria,

¡Hasta la Republica! ¡Hasta la Libertad!

María Pacheco

Trevor

 Dear Valeria,

Peace sister,

Trevor Carter (co-founder of the Notting Hill Carnival)

Bella

Dear Valeria,

I’ve been described as a tough and noisy woman, a prize fighter, a man-hater, you name it. They call me Battling Bella, Mother Courage, and a Jewish mother with more complaints than Portnoy. There are those who say I’m impatient, impetuous, uppity, rude, profane, brash, and overbearing. Whether I’m any of those things, or all of them, you can decide for yourself. But whatever I am—and this ought to be made very clear—I am a very serious woman.

Love,

 “Battling” Bella Savitzky Abzug

Pablo

Querida Valeria,

Y fue a esa edad... Llegó la poesía
a buscarme. No sé, no sé de dónde
salió, de invierno o río.
No sé cómo ni cuándo,
no, no eran voces, no eran
palabras, ni silencio,
pero desde una calle me llamaba,
desde las ramas de la noche,
de pronto entre los otros,
entre fuegos violentos
o regresando solo,
allí estaba sin rostro
y me tocaba.

Siempre,

Pablo Neruda

Robert

Dear Valeria,

I will that as soone as I am trespassed out of this worlde that ye take my harte owte of my body, and embawme it, and take of my treasoure as ye shall thynke sufficient for that enterprise, both for your selfe and suche company as ye wyll take with you, and present my hart to the holy Sepulchre where as our Lorde laye, seyng my body can nat come there.

Lang may yer lung reek,

Robert the Bruce

Pépin

Chère Valeria,

Amicalement,

Pépin de Landen, dit «l'Ancien»

WIlliam

Dear Valeria,

All presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously; for the law holds it better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent party suffer.

Yrs sincerely,

William Blackstone, KC SL.

Muhend

Chère Valeria,

Je suis de race berbère et j’ignore à quel point vous nous sous-estimez, mais j’affirme cependant que les berbères sont des gens avancés, qui ont hérité de nombreuses civilisations. Vous ignorez par exemple qu’en tant que berbère, je suis d’origine juive. Mes ancêtres sont ensuite devenus chrétiens, puis musulmans. Maintenant, nous parlons l’arabe, langue du Coran, nous nous entendons en berbère, langue de nos aïeux, mais nous conversons aussi en français, langue de notre pays asservi.

Amicalement,

Muhammad Ibn 'Abd el-Karim El-Khattabi (dit Abdelkrim)

Olympe

Ma chère Valeria,

Homme, es-tu capable d’être juste ? C’est une femme qui t’en fait la question ; tu ne lui ôteras pas du moins ce droit. Dis-moi? Qui t’a donné le souverain empire d’opprimer mon sexe ? Ta force ? Tes talents ? Observe le créateur dans sa sagesse ; parcours la nature dans toute sa grandeur, dont tu sembles vouloir te rapprocher, et donne-moi, si tu l’oses, l’exemple de cet empire tyrannique.

Je vous prie, Mademoiselle, etc.,

Olympe de Gouges

Petra

Dear Valeria,

The suffering people of this world must come together to take control of their lives, to wrest political power from their present masters pushing them towards destruction. The Earth has been mistreated and only by restoring a balance, only by living with the Earth, only by emphasising knowledge and expertise towards soft energies and soft technology for people and for life, can we overcome the patriarchal ego.

With love,

Petra Karin Kelly

Mary

Dear Valeria,

Men, that have not sense enough to show any superiority in their arguments, hope to be yielded to by a faith that, as they are men, all the reason that has been allotted to human kind had fallen to their share.

I am seriously of another opinion.

Yours sincerely,

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Taoyateduta

Listen Valeria,

Taoyateduta is not a coward, and he is not a fool! When did he run away from his enemies? When did he leave his braves behind him on the warpath and turn back to his tepee? When he ran away from your enemies, he walked behind on your trail with his face to the Ojibways and covered your backs as a she-bear covers her cubs!

Is Taoyateduta without scalps? Look at his war feathers! Behold the scalp locks of your enemies hanging there on his lodgepoles! Do they call him a coward? Taoyateduta is not a coward, and he is not a fool.

Braves, you are like little children: you know not what you are doing. You are full of the white man's devil water. You are like dogs in the Hot Moon when they run mad and snap at their own shadows. We are only little herds of buffalo left scattered; the great herds that once covered the prairies are no more.

See! — the white men are like the locusts when they fly so thick that the whole sky is a snowstorm. You may kill one — two — ten; yes, as many as the leaves in the forest yonder, and their brothers will not miss them. Kill one — two — ten, and ten times ten will come to kill you. Count your fingers all day long and white men with guns in their hands will come faster than you can count.

Yes; they fight among themselves — aways off. Do you hear the thunder of their big guns? No; it would take you two moons to run down to where they are fighting, and all the way your path would be among white soldiers as thick as tamaracks in the swamps of the Ojibways. Yes; they fight among themselves, but if you strike at them they will all turn on you and devour you and your women and little children just as the locusts in their time fall on the trees and devour all the leaves in one day.

You are fools. You cannot see the face of your chief; your eyes are full of smoke. You cannot hear his voice; your ears are full of roaring waters. Braves, you are little children — you are fools. You will die like the rabbits when the hungry wolves hunt them in the Hard Moon.

Taoyateduta is not a coward; he will die with you.

Yours,

Taoyateduta, "Little Crow" of the Mdewakanton Dakota Sioux

Alexandros

Dear Valeria,

Μαύρ’ είν’ η νύκτα στα βουνά,
στους βράχους πέφτει χιόνι.
Μες στ’ άγρια, στα σκοτεινά,
στες τραχιές πέτρες, στα στενά,
ο κλέφτης ξεσπαθώνει.

Στο δεξί χέρι το γυμνό
βαστά αστροπελέκι.
Παλάτι έχει το βουνό
και σκέπασμα τον ουρανό,
κ’ ελπίδα το τουφέκι.

Φεύγουν οι τύραννοι χλωμοί
το μαύρο του μαχαίρι·
μ’ ιδρώτα βρέχει το ψωμί,
ξέρει να ζήσει με τιμή,
και να πεθάνει ξέρει.

Τον κόσμ’ ο δόλος διοικεί
κι η άδικ’ ειμαρμένη.
Τα πλούτη έχουν οι κακοί,
κι εδώ στους βράχους κατοικεί
η αρετή κρυμμένη.^*

Yours,

Alexandros Rizos Rangavis

Lucrezia

Cara Valeria,

"Se gli uomini sapessino le ragioni della paura mia, Capir potrebbero il mio dolor."

Lucrezia Borgia, Signora di Pesaro e Gradara, Duchessa di Bisceglie e Principessa di Salerno, Duchessa consorte di Ferrara, Modena e Reggio

Waldo

Dear Valeria,

“What's the world to the all powerful?
A circle spinning.
And to the children of the earth?
A cradle rocking.”

Yr eiddoch yn gywir,

Waldo Williams

Francis

Dear Valeria,

My mind is calm, for my fortune is not my felicity. I know I have clean hands and a clean heart, and I hope a clean house for friends or servants; but Job himself, or whoever was the justest judge, by such hunting for matters against him as hath been used against me, may for a time seem foul, especially in a time when greatness is the mark and accusation is the game.

Sincerely,

Sir Francis Bacon

Ganesh

Dear Valeria,

I am a fighter against oppression and injustice, whether practised by bureaucrats, zamindars, capitalists or those of high caste. I have fought all my life against oppression against inhumanity and may God give me strength to fight on till the last.

All my best,

Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi

Khushal

Dear Valeria,

Your principle should be to see everything and say nothing. The world changes so rapidly that if you want to get on you cannot afford to align yourself with any person or point of view.

Peace,

Khushwant Singh