Cruelty Quotes - Page 30

• You want to free the world, free humanity, from oppression? Look inside, look sideways, look at the hidden violence of language. Never forget that language is where the other, parallel violence, the cruelty exercised on the body, originates.

  Ariel Dorfman

  Humanity, Looks, World

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• In my stories, I controlled what happened in a way I couldn't in real life. My characters lived through the horror and degradation of the cruelty of others and they not only survived, they thrived. They gave me hope and laughter, and they kept me going in spite of everything else. They were my heroes.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Laughter, Real, Hero

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• "From the reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius," Gibbon says again, "the Jews discovered a fierce impatience of the dominion of Rome which repeatedly broke out in the most furious massacres and insurrections. Humanity is shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties which the Jews committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting natives...In Cyrene they massacred 220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus 240,000; in Egypt a very great multitude. Many of these unhappy victims were sawed asunder..."

  Nesta Helen Webster

  Cities, Egypt, Rome

  Nesta Helen Webster (1921). “World Revolution: The Plot Against Civilization”

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• The Jews, I find, are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as Displaced Persons as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes.

  Harry S. Truman

  Dog, Selfish, Past

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• Someone who is perennially surprised that depravity exists, who continues to feel disillusioned (even incredulous) when confronted with evidence of what humans are capable of inflicting in the way of gruesome, hands-on cruelties upon other humans, has not reached moral or psychological adulthood.

  Susan Sontag

  Hands, Way, Moral

  Susan Sontag (2013). “Regarding the Pain of Others”, p.114, Macmillan

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• Reason cannot save us, nothing can; but reason can mitigate the cruelty of living.

  Philip Rieff

  Reason

  Philip Rieff (1979). “Freud: The Mind of the Moralist”, p.12, University of Chicago Press

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• Military weapons are the means used by the Sage to punish violence and cruelty, to give peace to troublous times, to remove difficulties and dangers, and to succor those who are in peril. Every animal with blood in its veins and horns on its head will fight when it is attacked. How much more so will man, who carries in his breast the faculties of love and hatred, joy and anger! When he is pleased, a feeling of affection springs up within him; when angry, his poisoned sting is brought into play. That is the natural law which governs his being

  Sima Qian

  Spring, Military, War

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• In life and art, there are distinctions to be made between what an act of cruelty consists of.

  Maggie Nelson

  Art, Made, Distinction

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• The steady pressure to consume, absorb, participate, receive, by eye, ear, mouth, and mail involves a cruelty to intestines, blood pressure, and psyche unparalleled in history.

  Herbert Gold

  Eye, Blood, Ears

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• There is no cruelty so inexorable and unrelenting as that which proceeds from a bigoted and presumptuous supposition of doing service to God. The victim of the fanatical persecutor will find that the stronger the motives he can urge for mercy are, the weaker will be his chance for obtaining it, for the merit of his destruction will be supposed to rise in value in proportion as it is effected at the expense of every feeling both of justice and of humanity.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Justice, Feelings, Humanity

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.128

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• Philosophy is the only excuse God has for his cruelty and vanity.

  Kedar Joshi

  God, Philosophy, Vanity

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• And in that hour,
  The seeds of cruelty, that since have swell'd
  To such gigantic and enormous growth,
  Were sown in human nature's fruitful soil.
  Hence date the persecution and the pain
  That man inflicts on all inferior kinds,
  Regardless of their plaints.

  William Cowper

  Pain, Men, Animal

  William Cowper (1872). “The poetical works of William Cowper: Complete ed., with memoir, explanatory notes etc”, p.318

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• O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, even our brothers, the animals, to whom Thou gavest the earth as their home in common with us. We must remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to thee in song, has been a groan of pain. May we realize that they live, not for us alone, but for themselves and for Thee and that they love the sweetness of life.

  Saint Basil

  Song, Brother, Pain

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• War should we waged without love of violence, cruelty, or enmity.

  Saint Augustine

  Love, War, Enmity

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• The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born of selflessness.

  Eric Hoffer

  Hatred, Selfishness, Ruthlessness

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• The obscene and vulgar stories in the Bible are as repugnant to our ideas of the purity of a Divine Being, as the horrid cruelties and murders it ascribes to Him are repugnant to our ideas of His justice.

  Thomas Paine

  Bible, Ideas, Justice

  Thomas Paine (1830). “The Theological Works of Thomas Paine: To which are Added the Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar”, p.333

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• What KFC does to 750 million chickens each year is not civilized or acceptable, and you can help change that. Cruelty is cruelty, and KFC is being cruel in the extreme. I am calling for a boycott of all KFC restaurants until my friends at PETA tell me that you have agreed to be kinder in your practices.

  Pamela Anderson

  Years, Practice, Kfc

  "Pamela Anderson takes on KFC", www.cnn.com. October 17, 2003.

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• Music comes from the heart and returns to the heart... music is spontaneous, impulsive expression... its range is without limit... music is forever growing... music can be one element to help us build a new conception of life in which the madness and cruelty of wars will be replaced by a simple understanding of the brotherhood of man.

  Leopold Stokowski

  War, Heart, Simple

  "Music For All Of Us". Book by Leopold Stokowski, 1943.

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• It has been well said that the food one consumes determines one's thoughts. By eating the flesh of various animals, the qualities of these animals are imbibed. How sinful is it to feed on animals, which are sustained by the same five elements as human beings! This leads to demonic tendencies, besides committing the sin of inflicting cruelty on animals.

  Sathya Sai Baba

  Animal, Quality, Elements

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• I think of the people who commit these acts as children. They're in their 20s, but like certain children, they have been told only one story, over and over. Like most children, they believe in an easily identifiable good and evil, and like most children, they are capable of unthinkable cruelty.

  Michael Cunningham

  Children, Believe, Thinking

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• I believe the NME have deliberately tried to characterise me as a racist in a recent interview in order to boost their circulation. I abhor racism and cruelty of any kind and will not let this pass.

  Steven Morrissey

  Believe, Order, Racism

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• An artist who is too self-centered is liable to exhibit faults he abhors: carelessness, callousness, and even downright cruelty.

  Eric Maisel

  Artist, Self, Ego

  Eric Maisel (1996). “Affirmations for Artists”, Tarcher

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• These small indignities and minor cruelties take a toll. They add to the burden of stress and fatigue that is already present in the workplace and they have real consequences on the every day lives of workers.

  P. M. Forni

  Stress, Real, Tolls

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• A day of grace is yet held out to us. Both North and South have been guilty before God; and the Christian Church has a heavy account to answer. Not by combining together, to protest injustice and cruelty, and making a common capital of sin, is this Union to be saved-but by repentance, justice and mercy; for, not surer is the eternal law by which the millstone sinks in the ocean, than that stronger law, by which injustice and cruelty shall bring on nations the wrath of Almighty God.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  God, Christian, Ocean

  "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Book by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Final lines, www.gutenberg.org. 1852.

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• Cruelty to animals is one of the most significant vices of a low and ignoble people.

  Alexander von Humboldt

  Animal, People, Vices

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