quotations about cruelty
Man is the cruelest animal. At tragedies, bullfights, and crucifixions he has so far felt best on earth; and when he invented hell for himself, behold, that was his heaven on earth.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
To exult over the miseries of an unhappy creature is inhuman.
HUGH BLAIR
The Beauties of Blair
Shame upon thee, savage Monarch-man, proud monopolist of reason;
Shame upon Creation's lord, the fierce ensanguined despot:
What, man! are there not enough, hunger, and diseases and fatigue--
And yet must thy goad or thy thong add another sorrow to existence?
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
"Of Cruelty to Animals,", Poems of King Alfred
Cruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves.
PAUL TILLICH
attributed, Wisdom for the Soul
It was woman that taught me cruelty, and on woman therefore I have exercised it.
SIR WALTER SCOTT
Ivanhoe
The kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.
KING SOLOMON
Proverbs 12:10
Clemency is the remedy of cruelty.
PHAEDRUS
Fables
Nothing can be more contrary to nature, to reason, to religion, than cruelty; hence as inhuman man is generally considered as a monster; such monsters, however, have existed; and the heart almost bleeds at the recital of the cruel acts such have been guilty of; it teaches us, however, what human nature is when left to itself; not only treacherous, but desperately wicked.
CHARLES BUCK
Miscellaneous Works of the Rev. Charles Buck
In our time the worst cruelties are not perpetrated by the individual but by the organization which in itself is analytical intellect incarnate.
FRANZ E. WINKLER
Man: The Bridge Between Two Worlds
Goodness, real goodness, has it's own sort of cruelty to it.
CASSANDRA CLARE
Clockwork Angel
The hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes.
CARSON MCCULLERS
The Ballad of the Sad Café
Cruelty constitutes the greatest moral distance at which an intelligent creature can be removed from a God of forbearance and mercy.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
You must be most miserable to be so cruel.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
Aurora Leigh
Cruelty is a tyrant that's always attended with fear.
THOMAS FULLER
Gnomologia
Cruelty and fear shake hands together.
BALZAC
attributed, Day's Collacon
The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.
BIBLE
Psalm 74:20
I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centred, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
South of the Border, West of the Sun
People talk sometimes of a bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that's all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
The Brothers Karamazov
There is no beast more cruel than man.
LEONID ANDREYEV
Savva
Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief, and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, Sep. 13, 1711