Violent Death Quotes

• Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry... no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Art, War, Men

  'Leviathan' (1651) pt. 1, ch. 13

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• When love grows diseased, the best thing we can do is to put it to a violent death. I cannot endure the torture of a lingering and consumptive passion.

  George Etherege

  Passion, Violent, Torture

  'The Man of Mode' (1676) act 2, sc. 2

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• If I die a violent death, as some fear and a few are plotting, I know that the violence will be in the thought and the action of the assassins, not in my dying.

  Indira Gandhi

  Fear, Dying, Assassins

  Indira Gandhi, Pupul Jayakar (1986). “What I am”

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• I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Funny, Wisdom

  Albert Einstein (2003). “Einstein's 1912 manuscript on the special theory of relativity”, George Braziller

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• Most people don't like to talk about violent historical death.

  Sarah Vowell

  People, Historical, Violent

  FaceBook post by Sarah Vowell from Apr 15, 2010

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• Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.

  James Madison

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Rights

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.46

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• When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Life, Marriage, Wedding

  Getting Married preface (1911)

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• the better angels of our nature

  Abraham Lincoln

  Angel, Civil War, Apocalypse

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1861

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• 

  Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.

  Malcolm X

  Respect, Peace, Hands

  "Message to the Grass Roots" (speech), Detroit, Mich., 10 Nov. 1963

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• To lose a son under those circumstances - a violent death like my son went through, it just puts a burden on your heart.

  Brian Jones

  Heart, Son, Violent

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• The rebel is doomed to a violent death. The rest of us can look forward to sedated expiration in a coma inside an oxygen tent, with tubes inserted in every bodily orifice.

  Edward Abbey

  Oxygen, Rebel, Looks

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.22, RosettaBooks

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• There was the murdered corpse, in covert laid,
  And violent death in thousand shapes displayed;
  The city to the soldier's rage resigned;
  Successless wars, and poverty behind;
  Ships burnt in fight, or forced on rocky shores,
  And the rash hunter strangled by the boars;
  The newborn babe by nurses overlaid;
  And the cook caught within the raging fire he made.

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  Death, War, Fighting

  John Dryden, Geoffrey Chaucer (1897). “Palamon and Arcite”

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• We know that many of the apostles of Christ were killed. Eleven out of 12 met violent deaths when they were just talking about God and light.

  Frederick Lenz

  Light, Talking, Christianity

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• Would we be so enamored with dystopian fiction if we lived in a culture where violent death was a major concern? It wouldn't be escapism.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Dystopian Fiction, Culture, Violent

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• A very beautiful honey blonde, Sharon Tate, looked into the eyes of the man who the evidence shows just four and a half months later would order her tragic and violent death.

  Vincent Bugliosi

  Beautiful, Eye, Men

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• In the whole vast dome of living nature there reigns an open violence, a kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom: as soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life.

  Joseph de Maistre

  Arms, Kingdoms, Reign

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• Drunk driving contains a far greater risk of violent death than the use or sale of illegal drugs, the societal response to drunk drivers has generally emphasized keeping the person functional and in society, while attempting to respond to the dangerous behavior through treatment and counseling.

  Michelle Alexander

  Drunk, Risk, Drug

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• I was 3-years-old - to this day it is a vivid memory. My family and I were on a boat, catching fish. As one fish was caught, he was writhing, then he was thrown against the side of the boat. You couldn't disguise what it was. This was what we did to animals to eat them. The animal went from a living, vibrant creature fighting for life to a violent death. I recognized it, as did my brothers and sisters.

  Joaquin Phoenix

  Brother, Memories, Fighting

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• Every individual who eats flesh food, whether an animal is killed expressely for him or not, is supporting the trade of slaughtering and contributing to the violent deaths of harmless animals.

  Philip Kapleau

  Buddhist, Animal, Flesh

  Philip Kapleau (1982). “To Cherish All Life: A Buddhist Case for Becoming Vegetarian”, Harper San Francisco

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• Peter swept aside Yogi Tea and Harmony Herbal Blend, though he hesitated a second over the chamomile. .... But no. Violent death demanded Earl Grey.

  Louise Penny

  Tea, Yogi, Harmony

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• Were I to go down into the market-place, armed with the powers of witchcraft, and take a peasant by the shoulders and whisper to him, 'In your lifetime, have you known peace?' wait for his answer, shake his shoulders and transform him into his father, and ask him the same question, and transform him in his turn to his father, I would never hear the word 'Yes,' if I carried my questioning of the dead back for a thousand years. I would always hear, 'No, there was fear, there were our enemies without, our rulers within, there was prison, there was torture, there was violent death.

  Rebecca West

  Father, Years, Waiting

  Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.36, Open Road Media

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• It Wasn't Hard To Follow The Scent Of Blood To The Living Room Where The Fae Had Been Killed. It Had Been A Violent Death, Perfect For Creating Ghosts.

  Patricia Briggs

  Creating, Blood, Perfect

  Patricia Briggs (2011). “The Mercy Thompson Collection”, p.663, Penguin

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• Looking at suicide—the sheer numbers, the pain leading up to it, and the suffering left behind—is harrowing. For every moment of exuberance in the science, or in the success of governments, there is a matching and terrible reality of the deaths themselves: the young deaths, the violent deaths, the unnecessary deaths

  Kay Redfield Jamison

  Suicide, Pain, Reality

  Kay Redfield Jamison (2011). “Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide”, p.310, Vintage

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• Those of us who have seen violent death up close, who have seen what high-powered bullets can do to living human tissue, have a horror of inflicting that nightmarish, never forgotten damage on a fellow human being. Perhaps the only more terrifying prospect is that such a fate should befall us or our loved ones. This is why we, a representative cross-section of America's population, keep deadly weapons for personal defense.

  Massad Ayoob

  Fate, America, Tissues

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• In a Western or a thriller there is often room for reflection upon the coercive necessities; even, occasionally, some attempt to pose other possibilities. In the horror movies there is finally a Hobbesian state of nature: 'continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'.

  Andrew Tudor

  Reflection, Men, Hollywood

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