Quotes About Cruelty

Nothing shocks our moral feelings so deeply as cruelty does. We can forgive every other crime, but not cruelty. The reason for this is that it is the very opposite of compassion.

There is cruelty in divorce. There is cruelty in forced or unfortunate marriage. We will continue to cry at weddings because we know how bittersweet, how fragile is the truth. We will always need legal divorce just as an emergency escape hatch is crucial in every submarine. No sense, however, in denying that after every divorce someone will be running like a cat, tin cans tied to its tail: spooked and slowed down.

A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.

Look at World War II, at Hitler's cruelty. The more cruelty, the more enthusiasm for revolution.

We cannot have two hearts, one for the animals and one for men. In cruelty towards the former and cruelty to the latter there is no difference but in the victim.

Cruelty depends on an understanding of cruelty, and the ability to choose against it. Or to choose to ignore it.

Kindness is the beginning of cruelty.

Is it because you are sunk in the cruelty of superstition, or feel no interest in the honor of your Creator, that you listen to the horrid tales of the Bible, or hear them with callous indifference?

There's a hole in the world like a great black pit and the vermin of the world inhabit it and its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit and it goes by the name of London. At the top of the hole sit the privileged few Making mock of the vermin in the lonely zoo turning beauty to filth and greed... I too have sailed the world and seen its wonders, for the cruelty of men is as wonderous as Peru but there's no place like London!

I remember reports that the American and English newspapers were very happy about the fact that so many were killed in Dresden. There are many instances of barbarity and cruelty on the part of the Allies which I could tell you.

The more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs.

It's extraordinary how little two people can understand each other and how cruel two people who are fond of each other can be to each other - there is practically no cruelty so awful because their power to hurt is so great.

A God out there and values out there, if they existed, would be utterly useless and unintelligible to us. There is nothing to be gained by nostalgia for the old objectivism, which was in any case used only to justify arrogance, tyranny, and cruelty. People [forget] ... how utterly hateful the old pre-humanitarianism world was.

I think that if people are instructed about anything, it should be about the nature of cruelty. And about why people behave so cruelly to each other. And what kind of satisfactions they derive from it. And why there is always a cost, and a price to be paid.

Cruelty is the luxury of those who have nothing to do, like drugs or racing stables.

I suppose I walk that line between comedy and cruelty because I think one illuminates the other. We're all cruel, aren't we? We are all extreme in one way or another at times and that's what drama, since the Greeks, has dealt with. I hope the overall view isn't just that though, or I've failed in my writing. There have to be moments when you glimpse something decent, something life-affirming even in the most twisted character. That's where the real art lies.

How can such episodes of such savage cruelty happen? The heart of man is an abyss out of which sometimes emerge plots of unspeakable ferocity capable of overturning in an instant the tranquil and productive life of a people.

Women? In order to realize how far these charming creatures we idealize can carry their cruelty, we must see them among themselves!

In the 19th century inhumanity meant cruelty; in the 20th century it means schizoid self-alienation.

Whoever possesses the will to suffering within himself has a different attitude towards cruelty: he does not regard it as inherently harmful and bad.

There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment.

Besides, wouldn't it be wonderful if no one ever had to worry about the random cruelty of fatal illness or the woes of old age attacking them or their loved ones?

I have seen a lifetime of transgender people and it was hard enough being gay in the '50s and early '60s. One couldn't imagine the cruelty that trans people had to face back then.

There is no middle way. We cannot compromise on cruelty.

Doubt is my boon companion, the faithful St. Bernard ever at my side. Whether writing essays or just going about daily life, I am constantly second-guessing myself. My mind is filled with 'yes, buts,' 'so whats?' and other skeptical rejoinders. I am forever monitoring myself for traces of folly, insensitivity, arrogance, false humility, cruelty, stupidity, immaturity and, guess what, I keep finding examples. Age has not made me wiser, except maybe in retrospect.

I have always been interested in theatre and after reading the script for THE INFLICTION OF CRUELTY, I thought that being part of this show and the Fringe would be a great experience.

In other words, I’m against cheating, greed, cruelty, racism, imperialism, religious fundamentalism, treason, and the seemingly limitless capacity for hypocrisy shown by Bush and his administration.

A few years ago the Deists denied the inspiration of the Bible on account of its cruelty. At the same time they worshiped what they were pleased to call the God of Nature. Now we are convinced that Nature is as cruel as the Bible; so that, if the God of Nature did not write the Bible, this God at least has caused earthquakes and pestilence and famine, and this God has allowed millions of his children to destroy one another. So that now we have arrived at the question - not as to whether the Bible is inspired and not as to whether Jehovah is the real God, but whether there is a God or not.

Faeries are fallen angels," said Dorothea, "cast down out of heaven for their pride." "That's the legend," Jace said. "It's also said that they're the offspring of demons and angels, which always seemed more likely to me. Good and evil, mixing together. Faeries are as beautiful as angels are supposed to be, but they have a lot of mischief and cruelty in them. And you'll notice most of them avoid midday sunlight—" "For the devil has no power," said Dorothea softly, as if she were reciting an old rhyme, "except in the dark.

So too, since Christ has in principle defeated the fallen "gods" (principalities and powers) who have for ages inspired injustice, cruelty and apathy toward the weak, the poor the oppressed and the needy (Ps. 82), the church can hardly carry out its role in manifesting, on earth and in heaven, Christ's victory over these gods without taking up as a central part of its missions just these causes. We can, in truth, no more bifurcate social concerns and individual salvation than we can bifurcate the cosmic and anthropocentric dimensions of Christ's work on the cross.

I felt shame for living in a nation of unprecedented prosperity-a nation that spends a smaller percentage of income on food than any other civilization has in human history-but in the name of affordability treats the animals it eats with cruelty so extreme it would be illegal if inflicted on a dog.

The human spirit glows from that small inner light of doubt whether we are right, while those who believe with certainty that they possess the right are dark inside and darken the world outside with cruelty, pain, and injustice.

To be a Jew is to be strong with a strength that has outlived persecutions. It is to be wise against ignorance, honest against piracy, harmless against evil, kind against cruelty

All just laws condemn cruelty.

Cruelty to animals can become violence to humans.

It was woman that taught me cruelty, and on woman therefore I have exercised it.

In justifying cruelty to animals we put ourselves also on the animal level. We choose the jungle and must abide by our choice.

Girls at war opt for a quieter cruelty than fistfights and drive-by shootings. Girls circumvent the corporeal and go straight for each other's souls. The bleeding is harder to stanch.

Some things are not forgiveable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgiveable. It is the most unforgiveable thing in my opinion, and the one thing in which I have never, ever been guilty.

Corruption and envy and lust for power. Cruelty and coldness. A vicious probing curiousity. Pure, poisonous, toxic malice. You have never from your earliest years shown a shred of compassion for sympathy or kindness without calculating how it would return to your advantage. You have tortured and killed without regret or hesitation; you have betrayed and intrigued and gloried in your treachery. You are a cess-pit of moral filth.

He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbor without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward.

The cruelty of fate is that I must travel with the people I hate when the people I love are dead behind me.

Cruelty is the only sin.

When you're a kid it's people's cruelty that makes you cry, then when you're an adult it's their kindness.

Man's highest duty is to protect animals from cruelty.

We are bound to lose Ireland in consequence of years of cruelty, stupidity and misgovernment and I would rather lose her as a friend than as a foe.

In its artless cruelty, Dallas is superior to any "intelligent" critique that can be made of it. That is why intellectual snobberymeets its match here.

Who can think that this eviction of Germans was undertaken only as a temporary experiment? Those who adopted the decision on the eviction of the Germans from these territories, and who understood that Poles from other Polish districts would at once move into these territories, cannot suggest after a while to carry out reverse measures. The very idea of involving millions of people in such experiments is unbelievable, quite apart from the cruelty of it, both towards the Poles and the Germans themselves.