Torture Quotes - Page 5

• A civilized society looks with horror upon the abuse and torture of children or adults. Even where capital punishment is practiced, the aim is to implement it as mercifully as possible. Are we to believe then that a holy God-our heavenly Father-is less just than the courts of men?

  Sidney Hatch

  Children, Father, Believe

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• The great religious ages were notable for their indifference to human rights... not only for acquiescence in poverty, inequality, exploitation and oppression, but also for enthusiastic justifications for slavery, persecution, abandonment of small children, torture, and genocide... Moreover, religion enshrined hierarchy, authority, and inequality... It was the age of equality that brought about the disappearance of such religious appurtenances as the auto-da-fe and burning at the stake.

  Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

  Religious, Children, Rights

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• Now do I begin to be a disciple of Christ, and care for nothing in this world, that so I may find Jesus. Let fire, or the cross, or wild beasts, or the breaking of my bones, or the cutting of me to pieces, or the shattering of my whole body, yea, all the tortures of the devil - let them all come upon me, only let me enjoy my God.

  Ignatius of Antioch

  Jesus, Cutting, Fire

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• Because one species is more clever than another, does it give it the right to imprison or torture the less clever species? Does one exceptionally clever individual have a right to exploit the less clever individuals of his own species? To say that he does is to say with the Fascists that the strong have a right to abuse and exploit the weak - might is right, and the strong and ruthless shall inherit the earth.

  Richard D. Ryder

  Strong, Clever, Philosophical

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• Love doesn't happen in an instant. It creeps up on you and then it turns your life upside-down. It colours your waking moments and fills your dreams. You begin to walk on air and see life in brilliant new shades. But it also brings with it a sweet agony, a delicious torture.

  Vikas Swarup

  Dream, Sweet, Air

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• Paul, we are going to kill you. That is cool, then I will go to Christ. Ok Paul, we are going to let you live. That is great, then I can witness Christ. Ok, then we will torture you. That is fine, then I will receive a reward in Heaven one day.

  Tony Evans

  Christian, Heaven, One Day

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• Certainly something had happened to me during the night. Or after months of tension I had arrived at the edge of some precipice and now I was falling, as in a dream slowly, even as I continued to hold the thermometer in my hand, een as I stood with the soles of my slippers on the floor, even as I felt myself solidly contained by the expectant looks of my children. It was the fault of the torture that my husband had inflicted. But enough, I had to tear the pain from memory, I had to sandpaper away the scratches that were damaging my brain.

  Elena Ferrante

  Dream, Children, Pain

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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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• Just as a prayer may be merely a mechanical intonation as of a bird, so may a fast be a mere mechanical torture of the flesh.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Prayer, Bird, May

  Mahatma Gandhi, Judith M. Brown (2008). “The Essential Writings”, p.364, Oxford University Press

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• You run on the treadmill. But you need to stop watching The Food Network when you're doing it. That is how you torture yourself.

  Jimmy Fallon

  Running, Needs, Treadmills

  "Jimmy Fallon Interviews Jimmy Fallon". Interview with Eric Spitznagel and Peter Yang, www.menshealth.com. December 23, 2014.

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• Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan For that deep wound it gives my friend and me; Is't not enough to torture me alone, But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?

  William Shakespeare

  Sad, Sweet, Heart

  William Shakespeare (2013). “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare In Plain and Simple English”, p.8759, BookCaps Study Guides

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• My decision to view the world through novels, as it were, which is a typically European way of looking at things, became a heavy burden for me. But I took it on consciously, even though it was torture for me.

  Orhan Pamuk

  Views, Decision, World

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• The torture that they are coming up with in China is so creative. They have this other method where they'll take a bamboo and they'll plant it in your anus and just let it grow. So patient. Man, watch out for China, I say. They have all the ambition as we do but none of the heart.

  Kristen Schaal

  Funny, Heart, Ambition

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• They seal the subway change-booth guy up inside this thing with bullet-proof glass, closed in on all sides, it's like some kind of Houdini torture tank of doom. How do you breathe in there? It looks like if you put your hand over the change slot, you could suffocate him in thirty seconds.

  Jerry Seinfeld

  Funny, Glasses, Hands

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• Fasting, as some people speculate, is not a bodily torture, martyrdom, or a cross, but it is a way to elevate the body to reach the level of cooperation with the soul. When we fast, our intention is not to torture the body but to shun its behaviour. Thus, one who fasts becomes a spiritual and not a physical person. Fasting is an ascetic soul which takes the body with it as its partner in asceticism.

  Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria

  Spiritual, People, Soul

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• Point shoes are torture devices.

  Natalie Portman

  Shoes, Devices

  Source: www.moviesonline.ca

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• I am one of the few people I know of who has argued in print that torture may be an ethical necessity in our war on terror.

  Sam Harris

  War, People, May

  "In Defense of Torture" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 17, 2005.

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• I was on NPR's All Things Considered yesterday. The question was, 'You're on the torture rack, they're going to kill you, who are you going to vote for? Mitt Romney, or Barack Obama? I said, 'Look, I've climbed Mount Everest. I know how to do what it takes. Take this to the bank: I would rather die.'

  Gary Johnson

  Yesterday, Npr, Looks

  "Gary Johnson Just Gave the Best Speech of His Presidential Campaign" by Mike Riggs, reason.com. May 5, 2012.

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• The parasite of art, the virus of art, never ceases to gnaw awat at your brain, never ceases to torture you with the knowledge that whatever you’re doing could be done more beautifully, more powerfully, more stirringly, more disturbingly, more deeply.

  Brian Morton

  Art, Brain, Viruses

  Brian Morton (2004). “A Window Across the River”, p.96, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There are some feelings time cannot benumb, Nor torture shake.

  Lord Byron

  Time, Feelings, Shakes

  Lord Byron (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Lord Byron (Illustrated)”, p.269, Delphi Classics

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• No ear can hear nor tongue can tell the tortures of the inward hell!

  Lord Byron

  Inward, Ears, Tongue

  George Gordon Byron, “The Giaour [Unquenched, Unquenchable]”

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• Penology...has become torture and foolishness, a waste of money and a cause of crime...a blotting out of sight and heightening of social anxiety.

  Paul Goodman

  Sight, Anxiety, Waste

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• Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the Bible with a single sentence: Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being. Imagine how different our world might be if the Bible contained this as its central precept.

  Sam Harris

  Our World, Abuse, Might

  "Letter to a Christian Nation". Book by Sam Harris, p. 23, 2006.

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• And dreams in their development have breath, And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy; They have a weight upon our waking thoughts, They take a weight from off our waking toils, They do divide our being.

  Lord Byron

  Dream, Joy, Tears

  Lord Byron (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Lord Byron (Illustrated)”, p.502, Delphi Classics

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• A material resurrection seems strange and even absurd except for purposes of punishment, and all punishment which is to revenge rather than correct must be morally wrong, and when the World is at an end, what moral or warning purpose can eternal tortures answer?

  Lord Byron

  Revenge, Punishment, Atheism

  Lord Byron (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Lord Byron (Illustrated)”, p.2725, Delphi Classics

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