quotations about cruelty
Some cruel people do not feel pleasure in making others suffer. Indeed, they seem not to feel anything. Their cruelty is manifested by a lack of what is judged appropriate feeling, as pity or mercy, for the plight of the individual whose suffering they cause ... as if they were unaware of it or failed to appreciate it as suffering, in the way that, for example, lions appear to be unaware of, and thus are not sensitive to, the pain they cause their prey.
TOM REGAN
The Case for Animal Rights
Is cruelty a moral judgment if it is fundamental to forms of life? Who is man to say that the workings of nature, and therefore of the divine plan of which he himself is part, are cruel?
CHARLES A. LINDBERGH
"The Primitive Passing,", Autobiography of Values
Inhumanity is caught from man,
From smiling man.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
You cannot use cruelty against yourself to justify cruelty to others.
MARIE LU
The Midnight Star
Each single day has just enough cruelty within
To make them perfect and right
Each single day has just enough dark, deep within
To make it perfect and light
JACK BRUCE
"Milonga Too", More Jack Than God
Perhaps in nearly every joy, as certainly in every pleasure, cruelty has its place.
OSCAR WILDE
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oh, 'tis cruelty to beat a cripple with his own crutches.
THOMAS FULLER
Holy and Profane States: Of Jesting
The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Sceptical Essays
Each snivelling hero seas of blood can spill,
When wrongs provoke and honour bids him kill;
Give me your through-paced rogue, who scorns to be
Prompted by poor revenge, or injury,
But does it of true inbred cruelty.
JOHN OLDHAM
On the Jesuits
Some things are not forgiveable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgiveable. It is the most unforgiveable thing in my opinion, and the one thing in which I have never, ever been guilty.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
A Streetcar Named Desire
Cruelty ever proceeds from a vile mind, and often from a cowardly heart.
LODOVICO ARIOSTO
Orlando Furioso
Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin.
G.K. CHESTERTON
All Things Considered
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
An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish