Cruelty Quotes - Page 28

• There are few pages of history which do not demonstrate that public prayer and ritual never inoculated people against mass-madness and cruelty. What is needed is emphasis on morality and manners.

  Steve Allen

  Prayer, People, Religion

  Steve Allen (2001). “Vulgarians at the Gate: Trash TV and Raunch Radio : Raising the Standards of Popular Culture”

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• My history of the Jesuits is not elegantly written, but is supported by unquestionable authorities, is very particular and very horrible. Their restoration is indeed "a step toward darkness," cruelty, perfidy, despotism, death and I wish we were out of danger of bigotry and Jesuitism.

  John Adams

  Darkness, Historical, Wish

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• The tendency to cruelty
  should be watched in
  children and if they
  incline to any such
  cruelty, they should be
  taught the contrary
  usage. For the custom
  of tormenting and killing
  other animals will, by
  degrees, harden their
  hearts even toward man.
  Children should from
  the beginning, be
  brought up in an
  abhorrence of killing or
  tormenting living
  beings.

  John Locke

  Children, Heart, Animal

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• Cruelty, as a fine art, has attained its perfect flower in the trained-animal world.

  Jack London

  Art, Flower, Animal

  Jack London (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Jack London (Illustrated)”, p.3773, Delphi Classics

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• Whatever littleness and vanity is to be observed in the minds of women, it is, like the cruelty of butchers, a temper that is wrought into them by that life which they are taught and accustomed to lead.

  William Law

  Christian, Religious, Vanity

  William Law, P. G. Stanwood (1978). “A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life ; The Spirit of Love”, p.263, Paulist Press

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• Humor does not include sarcasm, invalid irony, sardonicism, innuendo, or any other form of cruelty. When these things are raised to a high point they can become wit, but unlike the French and the English, we have not been much good at wit since the days of Benjamin Franklin.

  James Thurber

  Humor, Sarcasm, Doe

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• As long as man eats animals how can cruelty to animals be removed.

  Morarji Desai

  Animal, Men, Long

  "19th World Vegetarian Congress 1967". The British Vegetarian, ivu.org. March/April 1968.

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• I believe in preventing cruelty to all living beings in any form.

  Morarji Desai

  Believe, Form, Preventing

  Morarji Desai's speech at the 19th World Vegetarian Congress held at Mavhmkar Auditorium of Rafi Marg in New Delhi, India (November 18, 1967), later published in The British Vegetarian, March/April 1968.

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• Inhumanity is caught from man, From smiling man.

  Edward Young

  Men, Caught, Inhumanity

  Edward Young, Charles Edward DE COETLOGON (1793). “Night thoughts on life death and immortality ... to which are added the life of the author and a paraphrase on part of the Book of Job”, p.94

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• Think'st thou there is no tyranny but that Of blood and chains? The despotism of vice-- The weakness and the wickedness of luxury-- The negligence--the apathy--the evils Of sensual sloth--produces ten thousand tyrants, Whose delegated cruelty surpasses The worst acts of one energetic master, However harsh and hard in his own bearing.

  Lord Byron

  Thinking, Tyrants, Luxury

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• Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty.

  John Adams

  Suicide, Selfish, Passion

  Letter to John Taylor, 15 Apr. 1814

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• Tacitus appears to have been as great an enthusiast as Petrarch for the revival of the republic and universal empire. He has exerted the vengeance of history upon the emperors, but has veiled the conspiracies against them, and the incorrigible corruption of the people which probably provoked their most atrocious cruelties. Tyranny can scarcely be practised upon a virtuous and wise people.

  John Adams

  Wise, People, Republic

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.422

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• What is the history of mighty kingdoms and nations, but a detail of the ravages and cruelties of the powerful over the weak?

  Abigail Adams

  Powerful, Details, Kingdoms

  Abigail Adams, John Adams (1840). “Letters of Mrs. Adams: The Wife of John Adams”, p.197

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• Nobody here could ever talk about a heaven on earth. Heaven remained rigidly in its proper place on the other side of death, and on this side flourished the injustices, the cruelties, the meanness that elsewhere people so cleverly hushed up. Here you could love human beings nearly as God loved them, knowing the worst: you didn't love a pose, a pretty dress, a sentiment artfully assumed.

  Graham Greene

  Knowing, People, Heaven

  'The Heart of the Matter' (1948) bk. 1, pt. 1, ch. 5

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• We ought never to sport with pain and distress in any of our amusements, or treat even the meanest insect with wanton cruelty.

  Hugh Blair

  Sports, Pain, Cuckoos

  Hugh Blair, Alfred Howard (Esq.) (1810). “The Beauties of Blair: Consisting of Selections from His Works”, p.18

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• Catch and release fishing may be cruelty masquerading as political correctness

  John McPhee

  Sea, Fishing, Rivers

  John McPhee (2003). “The Founding Fish”, p.330, Macmillan

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• I treat people who write me the way my friends and I all treat each other when we go to each other for advice, which is sometimes with supreme cruelty. I think that's what helps the advice sink in. If somebody comes at you with both barrels, the first shot opens your head, and the second shot allows the advice to get lodged inside.

  Dan Savage

  Writing, Thinking, People

  Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. February 8, 2006.

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• People knew there were two ways of coming at truth. One was science, or what the Greeks called Logos, reason, logic. And that was essential that the discourse of science or logic related directed to the external world. The other was mythos, what the Greeks called myth, which didn't mean a fantasy story, but it was a narrative associated with ritual and ethical practice but it helped us to address problems for which there were no easy answers, like mortality, cruelty, the sorrow that overtakes us all that's part of the human condition. And these two were not in opposition, we needed both.

  Karen Armstrong

  Mean, Practice, Two

  "Big Think Interview With Karen Armstrong". Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. November 16, 2009.

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• There is no more evil thing in this world than race prejudice, none at all. [...] It justifies and holds together more baseness, cruelty, and abomination than any other sort of error in the world.

  H. G. Wells

  Errors, Race, Evil

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• Like my parents, I have never been a regular church member or churchgoer. It doesn't seem plausible to me that there is the kind of God who watches over human affairs, listens to prayers, and tries to guide people to follow His precepts - there is just too much misery and cruelty for that.

  Benjamin Spock

  Prayer, People, Parent

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• The more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs.

  Bertrand Russell

  Profound, Religion, Belief

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.20, Simon and Schuster

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• The military world is characterized by the absence of freedom - in other words, a rigorous discipline-enforced inactivity, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery and drunkenness.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Military, Ignorance, Discipline

  Leo Tolstoy (graf) (1961). “War and peace”

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• Sin is cruelty and injustice, all else is peccadillo.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Injustice, Sin

  Robert A. Heinlein (2007). “Glory Road”, p.144, Macmillan

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• As we put into all our schools more humane education, and foster the spirit of justice and kindness toward the "lower" creatures, just as soon shall we reach the roots not only of cruelty but of crime.

  Miriam A. Ferguson

  Kindness, School, Roots

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• If people knew how badly animals were treated in today's factory farms, if people knew how completely confined and immobilized these creatures are for their entire lives, if people knew how severe and unrelenting is the cruelty these animals are forced to endure, there would be change. If people knew. But too many of us choose to look the other way, to keep the veil in place, to remain unconscious and caught in the cultural trance. That way we are more comfortable. That way is convenient. That way we don' t have to risk too much. This is how we keep ourselves asleep.

  John Robbins

  Animal, People, Risk

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