Best 440 quotes in «cruelty quotes» category

Good people turn to love, courage and kindness in times of crisis, not hate, fear and cruelty.

Great God! hast Thou given men Thine own image that it should be thus cruelly defaced by the hands of their brethren!

Grayson noticed me next to the lockers. He pointed at me then held his arms out magnanimously. “You’re welcome, new girl,” he said. “I just saved you from having to find a nice way to say no to the leg dragger.

Guys like this Henry always pushed even the most unfunny joke two steps too far...then looked wounded and misunderstood when someone yelled at them. And it was always Wassa matter? and it was Can'tcha take a joke? and it was Why don'cha lighten up a little?

Happiness is a beautiful fruit that tastes of cruelty.

. . . have not some religions, including the most influential forms of Christianity, taught that the heart of man is totally corrupt? How could the course of religion in its entire sweep not be marked by practices that are shameful in their cruelty and lustfulness, and by beliefs that are degraded and intellectually incredible? What else than what we can find could be expected, in the case of people having little knowledge and no secure method of knowing; with primitive institutions, and with so little control of natural forces that they lived in a constant state of fear?

He had discovered that there was not just one God but many, and some were more than cruel — they were insane, and that changed all. Cruelty, after all, was understandable. With insanity, however, there was no arguing.

He knew what he was, what depths of depravity and cruelty he had plumbed, what ambitions drove him. He prided himself on knowing those things—but that didn’t mean he needed anyone else to see them as well.

Here’s an assignment for my fellow Christians: Go to YouTube, search for any video of ‘slaughterhouse animal cruelty’, watch it, the whole thing, and ask yourself if that’s what God meant when He gave us dominion over animals.” -Shenita Etwaroo

He read the words, wondering when cruelty won the vote from democracy.

He was a chicken in the outside world that turned into a lion on entering the house.

He's probably divorced. Mental cruelty.

He was a sceptic, he was young, abstract, and therefore cruel.

He's been through so much and to watch that boy suffer makes me wish this world wasn't so cruel.

How hardening to the heart it must be to do this thing: to change an innocent soaring being into a bundle of struggling rags and pain.

He who makes fun of a short and fat man’s weight is much less cruel than he who makes fun of his height.

How do evil people find the strength to do good?

History has seen many who claim to be deliverer and saviour of the people. They might come with force and violence and parade their might and splendour as conquerors. The pharaohs of Egypt, Sennacherib king of Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Darius of Persia, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Napoleon, Clive of India, Bismarck, the Kaiser, Hitler, Stalin. The story and scene is always the same. They claim to deliver the people from bondage and to establish justice, freedom and peace. They come in might, riding in splendour, dragging prisoners.

How I hope that I have only hate for you. But even if I wanted to, I can’t bring myself to hate you. I’m only afraid of the palace, afraid of the emperor. Why is he so cruel? So much that I’m petrified. -Ruo Xi

Humanity was cruel, and if you were prepared to try to find a bottom to that cruelty, you had best be prepared for a long, long fall.

I'd believed mine was the greatest of all the arts, the noblest of all the lies, the creation of hope. I thought hope could overcome everything, but I was wrong. Hope cannot overcome truth. Hope and truth cannot co-exist. Truth destroys hope. The most savage cruelties man inflicts on man are committed in the pursuit of truth. My last lie had been the most honest, the most honorable of them all, for there is an art greater even than the creation of hope. The greatest art of all is the destruction of truth.

I always take credit for my acts of cruelty. To do otherwise is cowardice.

I coudn't be kind to him after what he'd done, couldn't be cruel after what I had done

I cried myself, thinking of the grass growing on her tennis court, and the cruelty that was natural.

I didn't want a world in which I had to choose between blind human babies and tortured monkey ones. To be frank, that's the sort of choice I expect science to protect me from, not give me.

I’d known cruelty in a school—cruelty that would keep these amateurs up all night. But this kind of scene—crowds batting around a person because they thought he was weak—happened to be my personal trigger.

I believe the intensity of the pity you feel for an animal has to do with how it evokes pity for yourself.... Innocence is something we humans pass through and leave behind, unable to return. But animals live and die in that state, and seeing innocence violated in the form of cruelty to a mere duck can seem like the most barbaric act in the world.

I close my eyes, knowing that afterward we will fall asleep together on our small mattress, as we do every night, listening to the wind in the palm trees outside our window, believing in our thick dreams that we are capable of nothing cruel.

I don't believe vegans (or vegetarians) who still get their (packaged, preservative/chemical-ridden) food from industrial food systems have any righteous ground to stand on, nor do I think a deep look at the sentient life of plants or the true environmental impact of agriculture permits them any comfortable distance from cruelty. Everything in this world eats something else to survive, and that something else, whether running on blood or chlorophyll, would always rather continue to live rather than become sustenance for another. No animal wants to be penned up and milked, or caged and harvested, and you've never seen plants growing in regimented lines of their own accord.

I don't have to be a monster to hurt people. I can do it gently, with a single careless breath.

{From Lindsey's address at the funeral of renowned scientist Luther Burbank. Burbank was one of the most beloved people in the early 20th century due to his countless contributions to humanity, but when, in an interview, he revealed that he was an atheist, the public quickly turned on him, sending him hundreds of death threats. Upset and grief stricken, the kind-hearted Burbank tried to respond to every letter amiably, a task that ultimately led to his death} . . . Luther Burbank had a philosophy that actually works for human betterment, that dares to challenge the superstition, hypocrisy, and sham, which so often have worked for cruelties, inquisitions, wars and massacres. Superstition that stood across the road of Progress, commanded, not by a god or gods, but the meanest devils that we know--Ignorance, Intolerance, Bigotry, Fanaticism, and Hate. The prejudiced beneficiaries of organized theology refused to see what Burbank, the gifted child of Nature, saw with a vision as crystal as theirs is dense and dark. And so they assailed him. One of the saddest spectacles of our times is the effort of hidebound theologians, still desperately trying to chain us to the past--in other forms that would still invoke the inquisitions, the fears, and the bigotries of the dark ages, and keep the world in chains. The chains of lies, hypocrisies, taboos, and the superstitions, fostered by the dying, but still the organized, relentless outworn theology of another age. They refuse to see that in their stupid lust for power they are endangering all that is good.

I do wonder sometimes, I do wonder what it is about the human mind that goes to pain and degradation. I do wonder what it is. We talk about original sin. We talk about ignorance. We talk about people not having had a chance. We talk about poverty--a bunch of things--but there is something not quite right about the human species, because, given half a chance, we'd be eating one another.

If anything should take place behind closed doors, it was cruelty and betrayal.

If I am anything, I’m cruelty.

If there is a deity of the kind imagined by votaries of the big mail-order religions such as Christianity and Islam, and if this deity is the creator of all things, then it is responsible for cancer, meningitis, millions of spontaneous abortions everyday, mass killings of people in floods and earthquakes-and too great mountain of other natural evils to list besides. It would also,as the putative designer of human nature, ultimately be responsible or the ubiquitous and unbeatable human propensities for hatred, malice, greed, and all other sources of the cruelty and murder people inflict on each other hourly.

If animals could speak, we’d charge them rent.

If blood can produce money through rituals or the so-called human sacrifice, then it is the basis on which we live, so it is very essential to save and protect it from the fiendish eyes of blood sucking predators.

If I’m a monster, mademoiselle, it’s because man’s cruelty has made me so.

If we believe that god is the creator of evil, maybe there is evil also in heaven, if that is the case, we are not out of the woods yet

If we saw how everything was made, from start to finish, most companies would go out of business.

I meant that the hatred of that July day in Nashville was alive and well on that horrible day in Pittsburgh. People hate others so they strike like snakes. It’s all connected—we’re all connected, bumping around into each other, some of us good, some bad, most a mixture. Every thought acted upon has consequences. Every one.

If you just become some new cruel people, because you have been treated with cruelty by some old cruel people, and start treating others with cruelty, then they will end up becoming the new cruel people who will lead to many more generations of cruelty and violence. So, the cycle must break with you. Break the cycle my friend - break the cycle of violence, break the cycle of racism, break the cycle of bigotry. That's the only way all humans can live in peace.

I looked in vain for LaRoue, my cruelty toward her now in me like a splinter, where it would sit for years in my helpless memory, the skin growing around; what else can memory do? It can do nothing; It pretends to eat the shrapnel of your acts, yet it cannot swallow or chew.

I'm afraid it's not nonsense," Genghis said, shaking his turbaned head and continuing his story. "As I was saying before the little girl interrupted me, the baby didn't dash off with the other orphans. She just sat there like a sack of flour. So I walked over to her and gave her a kick to get her moving." "Excellent idea!" Nero said. "What a wonderful story this is! And then what happened?" "Well, at first it seemed like I'd kicked a big hole in the baby," Genghis said, his eyes shining, "which seemed lucky, because Sunny was a terrible athlete and it would have been a blessing to put her out of her misery." Nero clapped his hands. "I know just what you mean, Genghis," he said. "She's a terrible secretary as well." "But she did all that stapling," Mr. Remora protested. "Shut up and let the coach finish his story," Nero said. "But when I looked down," Genghis continued, "I saw that I hadn't kicked a hole in a baby. I'd kicked a hole in a bag of flour! I'd been tricked!" "That's terrible!" Nero cried.

I'm not a cruel man. I mean, technically I'm not a man at all.

If you haven't caused a scene in a psych unit, it's just because you haven't been inside long enough.

I know about sureness,' said Didactylos. 'I remember, before I was blind, I went to Omnia once. And in your Citadel I saw a crowd stoning a man to death in a pit. Ever seen that?' 'It has to be done,' Brutha mumbled. 'So the soul can be shriven and-' 'Don't know about the soul. Never been that kind of philosopher,' said Didactylos. 'All I know is, it was a horrible sight.' 'The state of the body is not-' 'Oh, I'm not talking about the poor bugger in the pit,' said the philosopher. 'I'm talking about the people throwing the stones. They were sure all right. They were sure it wasn't them in the pit. You could see it in their faces. So glad it wan't them in the pit that they were throwing just as hard as they could.

I know what I'm talking about, Alecto! When I think of Jud, I think of the times he wanted to be a coal miner, the times he took Wendy and me sailing in the harbour, the times he showed me how to play soccer, but I forgot all the bullying and I’ll never understand why. And now you ask me, you ask me what happened once we were in high school. You said you didn’t understand what having a family was like, so ask me!” Mandy was shouting at him without even realizing it, her words sharp and unforgiving. “I….” Alecto started, hesitating for a moment. “You don’t seem like yourself Mandy Valems, not at all….” “No, go ahead! You want to know what having a real family is like?” Mandy snapped, turning to stare at him coldly. “Ask me what happened, I’ll tell you anything you want to know!” “…What happened?” Alecto asked quietly, looking nervous and confused. “I stayed late after school in shop class when I was in grade 9, trying to keep my lousy grades up. I was building a birdhouse, something like that, and that was when Jud and all his popular jock friends came storming in, laughing and swearing like a bunch of pigs,” Mandy continued. “So ask me what happened next.” “I… I don’t want to ask you what happened,” Alecto replied. “Ask me!” Mandy yelled. “Alright, what happened next…?” Alecto questioned.

Imagine, if you will: Meradinis! The stuff myths are made of! The Turtle Island of the stars – home planet to the fearsome and once legendary Corsairs. The very name of this world immediately grabbed the imaginations of young boys and girls, and universally mesmerize dreamers and romantics alike. The truth though was less romantic – and as reality so often demonstrates in real life - instead rather ugly and brutal. The Corsairs were not corn-ball comics that went about with parrots on their shoulders, saying “Arr!” to everything they encountered. They were anything but. Behind the Corsairs and their culture lay a history fraught with a struggle to survive, a vengefulness and a cruelty – and a drive to survive by preying upon others that struck fear into the hearts of neighboring fringe worlds.

In all Thénardier's outpourings, the words and gestures, the fury blazing in his eyes, this explosion of an evil nature brazenly exposed, the mixture of bravado and abjectness, arrogance, pettiness, rage, absurdity; the hodgepodge of genuine distress, and lying sentiment, the shamelessness of a vicious man rejoicing in viciousness, the bare crudity of an ugly soul -- in this eruption of all suffering and hatred there was something which was hideous as evil itself and still as poignant as truth.