Infliction Quotes

• The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists - that is why they invented hell.

  Bertrand Russell

  Cynical, Religion, Atheism

  Sceptical Essays "On the Value of Scepticism" (1928)

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  The worst evils which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Peace, War, Government

  Ludwig Von Mises (1985). “Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War”, Libertarian Press

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• While his history of depression is compatible with suicide... and the location and direction of the stab wounds are consistent with self-infliction, several aspects of the circumstances (as they are known at this time) are atypical of suicide and raise the possibility of homicide.

  Elliott Smith

  Suicide, Self, Location

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• Congress's definition of torture in those laws - the infliction of severe mental or physical pain - leaves room for interrogation methods that go beyond polite conversation.

  John Yoo

  Pain, Law, Definitions

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• War is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents the total failure of the human spirit.

  Robert Fisk

  War, Victory, Spirit

  "The Great War for Civilization". Book by Robert Fisk, 2005.

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• There is an essential difference between the decease of the godly and the death of the ungodly. Death comes to the ungodly man as a penal infliction, but to the righteous as a summons to his Father's palace. To the sinner it is an execution, to the saint an undressing from his sins and infirmities. Death to the wicked is the King of terrors. Death to the saint is the end of terrors, the commencement of glory.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Death, Christian, Kings

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• In the application of Satyagraha, I discovered, in the earliest stages, that pursuit of Truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one's opponent, but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For, what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of Truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but one's own self.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Mean, Self, Errors

  Mahatma Gandhi, Dennis Dalton (1996). “Gandhi: Selected Political Writings”, p.61, Hackett Publishing

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• Even should it be conclusively proved that human beings benefit directly from the suffering of animals, its infliction would nevertheless be unethical and wrong.

  Hugh Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding

  Animal, Suffering, Benefits

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• Every man aims at avoiding what causes him pain; the activities of government ultimately consist in the infliction of pain. All great achievements of mankind were the product of a spontaneous effort on the part of individuals; government substitutes coercion for voluntary action.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Pain, Men, Effort

  Ludwig Von Mises (1962). “The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method”

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• The principle inherent in the clause that prohibits pointless infliction of excessive punishment when less severe punishment can adequately achieve the same purposes invalidates the punishment.

  William J. Brennan

  Punishment, Principles, Purpose

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• Monotony has nothing to do with a place; monotony, either in its sensation or its infliction, is simply the quality of a person. There are no dreary sights; there are only dreary sight seers.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Sight, Bored, Quality

  "Alarms and Discursions". Chapter: "A Romance of the Marshes". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1910.

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• Military necessity does not admit of cruelty - that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, . . . nor of torture to extort confessions.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Revenge, Military, Enemy

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• Becoming a vegetarian is not merely a symbolic gesture. Nor is it an attempt to isolate oneself from the ugly realities of the world, to keep oneself pure and so without responsibility for the cruelty and carnage all around. Becoming a vegetarian is a highly practical and effective step one can take toward ending both the killing of nonhuman animals and the infliction of suffering on them.

  Peter Singer

  Philosophical, Responsibility, Animal

  Peter Singer (1975). “Animal liberation: a new ethics for our treatment of animals”

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• Whenever a human being, through the commission of a crime, has become exiled from good, he needs to be reintegrated with it through suffering. The suffering should be inflicted with the aim of bringing the soul to recognize freely some day that its infliction was just.

  Simone Weil

  Punishment, Soul, Suffering

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.226, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• I am more optimistic though, that this court will eventually conclude that the effort to eliminate arbitrariness while preserving fairness in the infliction of [death] is so plainly doomed to failure that is - and the death penalty - must be abandoned altogether. I may not live to see that day, but I have faith that eventually it will arrive.

  Harry A. Blackmun

  Optimistic, Effort, May

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• I told that girl, in the kindest, gentlest way, that I could not consent to deliver judgment upon any one's manuscript, because an individual's verdict was worthless. It might underrate a work of high merit and lose it to the world, or it might overrate a trashy production and so open the way for its infliction upon the world. I said that the great public was the only tribunal competent to sit in judgment upon a literary effort, and therefore it must be best to lay it before that tribunal in the outset, since in the end it must stand or fall by that mighty court's decision any way.

  Mark Twain

  Girl, Fall, Effort

  Mark Twain “Carnival of Crime in Ct”, Library of Alexandria

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• 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.

  Pawel Szajda

  Reading, Theatre, Would Be

  Source: www.broadwayworld.com

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• As long as there is unemployment, war, crime and all things that go to the infliction of man's inhumanity to man, regardless - there is much to be done, and people need to work together.

  Rosa Parks

  War, Men, Inhumanity To Man

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• I have discovered that I cannot ignore the infliction of suffering - especially for my convenience or pleasure! It's as if a puppy is being kicked in front of me. I must try to do something.

  Kristin Bauer van Straten

  Suffering, Trying, Puppy

  "Interview with True Blood Star, Kristin Bauer". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• Be guided, only by the healer of the sick, the raiser of the dead, the friend of all who were afflicted and forlorn, the patient Master who shed tears of compassion for our infirmities. We cannot but be right if we put all the rest away, and do everything in remembrance of Him. There is no vengeance and no infliction of suffering in His life, I am sure. There can be no confusion in following Him, and seeking for no other footsteps, I am certain!

  Charles Dickens

  Compassion, Sick, Confusion

  Charles Dickens (2009). “The Complete Works of Charles Dickens: Little Dorrit”, p.825, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Books, gentlemen, are a species of men, and introduced to them you circulate in the "very best society" that this world can furnish, without the intolerable infliction of "dressing" to go into it. In your shabbiest coat and cosiest slippers you may socially chat even with the fastidious Earl of Chesterfield, and lounging under a tree enjoy the divinest intimacy with my late lord of Verulam.

  Herman Melville

  Reading, Book, Men

  Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.4516, Delphi Classics

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• I would rather quit public life at seventy, and quit it forever, than to retain public life at a sacrifice to my own self-respect. I will not vote for any law which will make fair for me and foul for another. The blacklist is the most cruel form of oppression ever devised by man for the infliction of suffering upon his weaker fellows.

  Joseph Gurney Cannon

  Sacrifice, Men, Self

  "Uncle Joe Cannon" by L. White Busby, (p. 278), 1927.

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• It has been the resolution of mankind in all ages of the world. No people, no age, ever threw away the fruits of past wisdom, or the enjoyment of present blessings, for visionary schemes of ideal perfection. It is the knowledge of the past, the actual infliction of the present, that has produced all changes, all innovations, and all improvements - not (as is pretended) the chimerical anticipation of possible advantages, but the intolerable pressure of long-established, notorious, aggravated, and growing abuses.

  William Hazlitt

  Blessing, Past, Long

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1176, Delphi Classics

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• Bush is almost always clear when he's speaking cruelly. For example, when the subject is the punitive infliction of great pain, there is no problem with his syntax, grammar, or vocabulary, even if he happens to be lying. ... On the other hand, our president is extraordinarily tongue-tied when he's trying, off the cuff, to sound a note of idealism, magnanimity or -- especially -- compassion.

  Mark Crispin Miller

  Pain, Lying, Compassion

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• A 'civilization' that makes such a ridiculous fuss about alleged 'war crimes' - acts of violence against the actual or potential enemies of one's cause - and tolerates slaughterhouses and vivisection laboratories, and circuses and the fur industry (infliction of pain upon creatures that can never be for or against any cause), does not deserve to live.

  Savitri Devi

  Life, Pain, War

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