quotations about cruelty
A cruel heart ill suits a manly mind.
HOMER
Iliad
Cruel lands breed cruel peoples.
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN
A Clash of Kings
Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn’t really hurt.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Heartbreak House
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
ROBERT BURNS
Man Was Made to Mourn
In a cruel land, you either learned to laugh at cruelty or spent your life weeping.
ROBERT JORDAN
A Crown of Swords
You can depend on cruelty
On cruelty in borderline
You can't depend on the water, honey
You need a busload of faith to get by
BOB SEGER
"Busload of Faith"
Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel.
JACK LONDON
The Star Rover
Probably human cruelty is fixed and eternal. Only styles change.
MARTIN AMIS
Time's Arrow
A man of cruelty is God's enemy.
THOMAS FULLER
Gnomologia
Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all.
MARQUIS DE SADE
Philosophy in the Bedroom
Cruelty was the vice of the ancient, vanity is that of the modern world.
GEORGE MOORE
Mummer-Worship
Come, you spirits ...
And fill me from the crown to toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Macbeth
There is no document of civilization that is not also a document of barbarism.
WALTER BENJAMIN
On the Concept of History
In great hearts the cruelty of life gives birth to good.
VASILY GROSSMAN
Life and Fate
Let me be cruel, not unnatural.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Hamlet
The story is not a pretty one. there is violence in it. And cruelty. But stories that are not pretty have a certain value, too, I suppose.
KATE DICAMILLO
The Tale of Despereaux
The cruel man is always inflicting trouble upon himself; when he thinks he is injuring others he is in reality thrusting the iron into his own soul.
JOSEPH PARKER
The Peoples Bible
There's more fellowship among snakes than among mankind.
Wild beasts spare those with similar markings.
JUVENAL
Satires
We can never be gods, after all--but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.
N. K. JEMISIN
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
Darkness is the fit hour for beasts of prey, and ignorance the natural dwelling place of cruelty.
C. H. SPURGEON
Treasury of David