Quotes and Sayings about Cruelty
"The bust of Colonel Sanders stands as a monument to cruelty and has no place in the Kentucky state Capitol."
- Pamela Anderson
(Related: Cruelty, Kentucky, Monument, State)
"Keep fighting for animals by making compassionate, cruelty-free choices every day and encouraging those around you to do the same."
- Bea Arthur
(Related: Encouraging, Animals, Choices, Cruelty, Day, Fighting)
"To insult someone we call him "bestial." For deliberate cruelty and nature, "human" might be the greater insult."
- Isaac Asimov
(Related: Nature, Cruelty, Insult)
"Nothing in the nature around us is evil. This needs to be repeated since one of the human ways of talking oneself into inhuman acts is to cite the supposed cruelty of nature."
- John Berger
(Related: Nature, Cruelty, Evil, Needs, Nothing, Talking)
"What is a wife and what is a harlot? What is a church and what is a theatre? are they two and not one? Can they exist separate? Are not religion and politics the same thing? Brotherhood is religion. O demonstrations of reason dividing families in cruelty and pride!"
- William Blake
(Related: Politics, Religion, Wife, Church, Brotherhood, Cruelty, Reason, Theatre)
"There is a ceaseless war against drunkenness and cruelty and vice."
- Anthony Blunt
(Related: War, Cruelty, Vice)
"Fantasy is toxic: the private cruelty and the world war both have their start in the heated brain."
- Elizabeth Bowen
(Related: War, Cruelty, Fantasy, World, World war)
"World's use is cold, world's love is vain, world's cruelty is bitter bane; but is not the fruit of pain."
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(Related: Love, Cruelty, Pain, World)
"The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty because freedom is their greatest fear - and they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march."
- George W. Bush
(Related: Fear, Cruelty, Cunning, Fighting, Freedom, March)
"The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them."
- George W. Bush
(Related: God, War, Fear, Conflict, Cruelty, Freedom, Justice)
"Christ and The Church: If he were to apply for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery and desertion, he would probably get one."
- Samuel Butler
(Related: Adultery, Christ, Cruelty, Divorce)
"I think because of their terrible past, particularly this century, the Chinese have come to accept cruelty more than many other people, which is something I feel very unhappy about."
- Jung Chang
(Related: People, Cruelty, Past)
"What has marked Chinese society is its level of cruelty, not just revolutions and wars. We ought to reject it totally, otherwise in another upheaval there will be further cruelty."
- Jung Chang
(Related: Society, Cruelty, Will)
"It is usually when men are at their most religious that they behave with the least sense and the greatest cruelty."
- Ilka Chase
(Related: Men, Cruelty, Religious, Sense)
"Their prejudice allowed white Southerners to look the other way when blacks were denied their most basic human rights, and it encouraged the worst of them to engage in unspeakable acts of cruelty and violence."
- Linda Chavez
(Related: Cruelty, Rights, Human rights, Prejudice, Violence)
"Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades."
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
(Related: Men, Animals, Cruelty, Injustice, Poor, Treachery)
"Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty."
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
(Related: Cruelty, Sin)
"Cruelty is softened by fear, not pity."
- Mason Cooley
(Related: Fear, Cruelty, Pity)
"People nearly always believe, and are willing to back it up with weapons and cruelty, that their religion and way of life is better than the other person's."
- Caroline B. Cooney
(Related: Life, Religion, People, Cruelty, Weapons)
"I believe in preventing cruelty to all living beings in any form."
- Morarji Desai
(Related: Cruelty, Living)
"As long as man eats animals how can cruelty to animals be removed."
- Morarji Desai
(Related: Animals, Cruelty, Man)
"Being a Jew, one learns to believe in the reality of cruelty and one learns to recognize indifference to human suffering as a fact."
- Andrea Dworkin
(Related: Being, Cruelty, Fact, Indifference, Reality, Suffering)
"Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity."
- George Eliot
(Related: Opportunity, Cruelty, Motive, Vice)
"Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness."
- George Eliot
(Related: Cruelty, Effect, Kindness, May, Unkindness)
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable."
- Jodie Foster
(Related: Cruelty)
"Fear is the parent of cruelty."
- James Anthony Froude
(Related: Fear, Cruelty)
"In the name of noble purposes men have committed unspeakable acts of cruelty against one another."
- J. William Fulbright
(Related: Men, Cruelty, Name)
"Cruelty is a tyrant that's always attended with fear."
- Thomas Fuller
(Related: Fear, Cruelty)
"We are bound to lose Ireland in consequence of years of cruelty, stupidity and misgovernment and I would rather lose her as a friend than as a foe."
- William E. Gladstone
(Related: Friend, Cruelty, Ireland, Stupidity, Years)
"Beware the ends of the earth and the exotic: the drama is on your doorstep wherever the slums; are, wherever there is malnutrition, wherever there is exploitation and cruelty."
- John Grierson
(Related: Cruelty, Drama, Earth, Exploitation)
"I am very sad for men and women trapped in any relationship where there is cruelty, dominance, inequity. I long for the liberation of all people."
- Jasmine Guy
(Related: Men, Women, People, Cruelty)
"Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can't get out of it if we would."
- Thomas Hardy
(Related: Nature, Society, Cruelty, Law)
"Kindness is the beginning of cruelty."
- Frank Herbert
(Related: Beginning, Cruelty, Kindness)
"The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don't ask for their love; only for their fear."
- Heinrich Himmler
(Related: Men, Love, Fear, Cruelty, Hate, May, Respect, Terror)
"The Haitian people are gentle and lovable except for their enormous and unconscious cruelty."
- Zora Neale Hurston
(Related: People, Cruelty, Unconscious)
"The impulse to cruelty is, in many people, almost as violent as the impulse to sexual love - almost as violent and much more mischievous."
- Aldous Huxley
(Related: Love, People, Cruelty)
"The thing which grieves and oppresses my heart with respect to poor Scotland, is the hardness of heart manifest in the levity and cruelty with which they speak of others."
- Edward Irving
(Related: Heart, Cruelty, Poor, Respect, Scotland)
"Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities."
- Harriet Ann Jacobs
(Related: Cruelty)
"Cruelty is a part of nature, at least of human nature, but it is the one thing that seems unnatural to us."
- Robinson Jeffers
(Related: Nature, Cruelty, Human nature)
"Love has its place, as does hate. Peace has its place, as does war. Mercy has its place, as do cruelty and revenge."
- Meir Kahane
(Related: Love, Peace, War, Cruelty, Hate, Mercy, Revenge)
"The truth doesn't have to do with cruelty, the truth has to do with mercy."
- Ken Kesey
(Related: Truth, Cruelty, Mercy)
"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
(Related: People, Cruelty, Oppression, Silence, Tragedy)
"Brutality to an animal is cruelty to mankind - it is only the difference in the victim."
- Alphonse de Lamartine
(Related: Cruelty, Difference, Mankind)
"There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates."
- James Russell Lowell
(Related: Cruelty, Nothing, Sea, Wonder)
"I'm very touched on a deep level by cruelty to animals."
- Ali MacGraw
(Related: Animals, Cruelty, Deep)
"Where does discipline end? Where does cruelty begin? Somewhere between these, thousands of children inhabit a voiceless hell."
- Francois Mauriac
(Related: Discipline, Children, Cruelty, End, Hell)
"Cruelty is one fashion statement we can all do without."
- Rue McClanahan
(Related: Cruelty, Fashion)
"Courtesy is a silver lining around the dark clouds of civilization; it is the best part of refinement and in many ways, an art of heroic beauty in the vast gallery of man's cruelty and baseness."
- Bryant H. McGill
(Related: Art, Beauty, Civilization, Clouds, Courtesy, Cruelty, Man)
"Group conformity scares the pants off me because it's so often a prelude to cruelty towards anyone who doesn't want to - or can't - join the Big Parade."
- Bette Midler
(Related: Conformity, Cruelty, Want)
"I see that the path of progress has never taken a straight line, but has always been a zigzag course amid the conflicting forces of right and wrong, truth and error, justice and injustice, cruelty and mercy."
- Kelly Miller
(Related: Truth, Progress, Cruelty, Error, Injustice, Mercy, Right, Wrong)
"With the first act of cruelty committed in the name of revolution, with the first murder, with the first purge and execution, we have lost the revolution."
- Kate Millett
(Related: Act, Cruelty, Execution, First, Revolution, Murder, Name)
"My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music."
- Vladimir Nabokov
(Related: Music, Crime, Cruelty, Oppression, Stupidity)
"Is the capacity for cruelty inherent in all of us?"
- Soledad O'Brien
(Related: Cruelty)
"War is cruelty, and none can make it gentle."
- Gilbert Parker
(Related: War, Cruelty)
"Even so, one step from my grave, I believe that cruelty, spite, The powers of darkness will in time, Be crushed by the spirit of light."
- Boris Pasternak
(Related: Time, Cruelty, Darkness, Grave, Light, Spirit, Will)
"The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn."
- Pope John Paul II
(Related: Cruelty, Victims)
"Gentleness is the antidote for cruelty."
- Phaedrus
(Related: Cruelty)
"To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is cruelty."
- Maximilien Robespierre
(Related: Cruelty, Humanity)
"I am an optimist because I want to change things for the better and I know that blood has to be spilled and disharmony and cruelty are necessary to do that."
- Henry Rollins
(Related: Change, Blood, Cruelty, Want)
"Cruelty to men and to the lower animals as well, which would have passed unnoticed a century ago, now shocks the sensibilities and is regarded as wicked and degrading."
- Elihu Root
(Related: Men, Animals, Cruelty, Now)
"Stupidity, outrage, vanity, cruelty, iniquity, bad faith, falsehood - we fail to see the whole array when it is facing in the same direction as we."
- Jean Rostand
(Related: Faith, Cruelty, Direction, Falsehood, Stupidity, Vanity)
"No baseness or cruelty of treason so deep or so tragic shall enter our human world, but that loyal love shall be able in due time to oppose to just that deed of treason its fitting deed of atonement."
- Josiah Royce
(Related: Love, Time, Cruelty, Deed, Deep, Treason, World)
"The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell."
- Bertrand Russell
(Related: Conscience, Cruelty, Delight, Hell)
"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom."
- Bertrand Russell
(Related: Wisdom, Fear, Beginning, Cruelty, Superstition)
"I think that if people are instructed about anything, it should be about the nature of cruelty. And about why people behave so cruelly to each other. And what kind of satisfactions they derive from it. And why there is always a cost, and a price to be paid."
- Richard Russo
(Related: Nature, People, Cruelty)
"Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust."
- Marquis de Sade
(Related: Life, Strength, Ambition, Cruelty, Lust, Revenge)
"All cruelty springs from weakness."
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
(Related: Cruelty, Weakness)
"My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt."
- Anna Sewell
(Related: Power, Cruelty, Doctrine, Guilt, Nothing, Wrong)
"Now I say that with cruelty and oppression it is everybody's business to interfere when they see it."
- Anna Sewell
(Related: Business, Cruelty, Now, Oppression)
"Farewell, fair cruelty."
- William Shakespeare
(Related: Cruelty)
"Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn't really hurt."
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Cruelty, Hurt)
"I got a divorce eleven years later on the grounds of cruelty, which is still not easy in England."
- Dinah Sheridan
(Related: Cruelty, Divorce, England, Years)
"If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking."
- William Tecumseh Sherman
(Related: War, People, Cruelty, Popularity, Will)
"War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over."
- William Tecumseh Sherman
(Related: War, Cruelty, Reform, Trying, Will)
"I think the suffering, violence and cruelty and Guantanamo and the rest is going to go on and on in Iraq."
- Clare Short
(Related: Cruelty, Iraq, Rest, Suffering, Violence)
"I think he is an extremely accessible character. In Data there is no potential for cruelty."
- Brent Spiner
(Related: Character, Cruelty, Potential)
"Cruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves."
- Paul Tillich
(Related: Cruelty)
"It is possible that the contemplation of cruelty will not make us humane but cruel; that the reiteration of the badness of our spiritual condition will make us consent to it."
- Lionel Trilling
(Related: Contemplation, Cruelty, Spiritual, Will)
"In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time."
- Leon Trotsky
(Related: Time, Cruelty, Struggle)
"Besides, wouldn't it be wonderful if no one ever had to worry about the random cruelty of fatal illness or the woes of old age attacking them or their loved ones?"
- Joan D. Vinge
(Related: Age, Cruelty, Illness, Old, Worry)
"I couldn't watch Tom and Jerry. The cruelty was too much. I had all these strange images, of tiny animals, all mixed up."
- Julie Walters
(Related: Animals, Cruelty)
"This circulating medium has a natural tendency to lessen by degrees the value and the use of money, and finally to render it powerless; and consequently to sweep away all the crushing masses of fraud, iniquity, cruelty, corruption and imposition that are built upon it."
- Josiah Warren
(Related: Money, Corruption, Cruelty, Fraud, Value)
"It may be a mistake, that man, in a state of nature, is more disposed to cruelty than courtesy."
- Mercy Otis Warren
(Related: Nature, Mistake, Courtesy, Cruelty, Man, May, State)
"There's a certain edge about cruelty. If you're honest about it, most people wince, but say it had to be said."
- Pete Waterman
(Related: People, Cruelty)
"In the context of interfaith encounter, we need to bring to the surface how our actual beliefs shape what we do - not simply to agree that kindness is better than cruelty."
- Rowan D. Williams
(Related: Beliefs, Cruelty, Kindness)