quotes about Cruelty
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Cruelty to animals can become violence to humans.
-- Ali MacGraw -
Human compassion is equal to human cruelty, and it is up to each of us to tip the balance.
-- Alice Walker -
If it were absolutely necessary to choose, I would rather be guilty of an immoral act than of a cruel one.
-- Anatole France -
Now I say that with cruelty and oppression it is everybody's business to interfere when they see it.
-- Anna SewellSource : Anna Sewell (2016). “Black Beauty”, p.68, First Avenue Editions
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Cruelty in the theatre is unrelenting decisiveness, diligence, strictness.
-- Antonin Artaud -
How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?
-- Bertrand Russell -
It seems to me that a man who is incapable of humor is capable of cruelty.
-- Bette GreeneSource : Jean Webster (2016). “Daddy Long-Legs and Dear Enemy: Illustrated”, p.70, Jester House Publishing
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Life has shown me all too often that there is no rhyme or reason to the cruelty inflicted upon humanity.
-- Cassia LeoSource : Cassia Leo (2014). “Black Box”, p.17, Random House
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Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well with others.
-- Cesar Chavez -
Yes,' growled Fell, 'for animals do not know what they do, but man has knowledge of his cruelty.
-- David Clement-Davies -
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People are able to justify immense cruelty and say that it is something that is sanctioned by their faith.
-- Desmond Tutu -
There is an accumulative cruelty in a number of men, though none in particular are ill natured.
-- E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax -
Not all games are innocent. Some come dangerously close to cruelty.
-- Elie Wiesel -
Fear is isolating for those that fear. And I have come to believe that fear is a cruelty to those who are feared.
-- Eula BissSource : "No-Man’s-Land" by Eula Biss, www.believermag.com. February 2008.
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War is cruelty, and none can make it gentle.
-- Gilbert ParkerSource : Gilbert Parker “The Complete Works of Gilbert Parker”, Library of Alexandria
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Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities.
-- Harriet Ann JacobsSource : Harriet Ann Jacobs (2006). “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Literary Touchstone Classic”, p.234, Prestwick House Inc
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If love goes too far, it turns into cruelty.
-- Haruo ShiraneSource : Haruo Shirane (2013). “Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600-1900”, p.898, Columbia University Press
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Decisiveness is often the art of timely cruelty.
-- Henry Becque -
Animal cruelty is one of the most unfortunate and barbaric demonstrations of human beings manipulating ill conceived notions of ‘power’ over other species.
-- Ian Somerhalder -
When Love cast me out, it was Cruelty who took pity upon me
-- Jacqueline Carey -
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The human soul finds its saddest imprisonment when it is helpless in the presence of cruelty, when it cannot right a wrong. It finds its highest freedom when it can secure justice to others.
-- Jenkin Lloyd Jones -
Savor kindness because cruelty is always possible later.
-- Jenny Holzer -
Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable.
-- Jodie FosterSource : Jodie Foster's Academy Awards Acceptance Speech, aaspeechesdb.oscars.org. March 29, 1989.
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The cruelty of the effeminate is more dreadful than that or the hardy.
-- Johann Kaspar Lavater -
To inflict cruelties on defenceless creatures, or condone such acts, is to abuse one of the cardinal tenets of a civilized society - reverence for life.
-- Jon Evans -
Cruelty depends on an understanding of cruelty, and the ability to choose against it. Or to choose to ignore it.
-- Jonathan Safran Foer -
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Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy.
-- Jorge Luis BorgesSource : Statement to the Argentine Society of Letters, 1946.
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The truth doesn't have to do with cruelty, the truth has to do with mercy.
-- Ken Kesey -
cruelty and benevolence are but shades of the same colour.
-- Khaled Hosseini -
In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.
-- Leon Trotsky -
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There is no beast more cruel than man.
-- Leonid AndreyevSource : Leonid Andreyev (1914). “Savva: The Life of Man; Two Plays”
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It's the worst kind of cruelty — the thoughtless kind. You can't cope with it.
-- Lucy Maud Montgomery -
If only the peace I feel right nowcould be stored up and released laterwhen cruelty surrounds mein the darkduring nightmares.
-- Margarita EngleSource : Margarita Engle (2009). “Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba”, p.158, Macmillan
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Probably human cruelty is fixed and eternal. Only styles change.
-- Martin AmisSource : Martin Amis (1991). “Time's arrow, or, The nature of the offence”, Vintage
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The only thing worse than cruelty is delegated cruelty.
-- Matthew ScullySource : Matthew Scully (2011). “Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy”, p.323, Souvenir Press
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Power rises to the top like cream and dominates the weak with cruelty disguised as -- and often even believed to be -- benevolence.
-- Michael J. SullivanSource : Michael J. Sullivan (2009). “Nyphron Rising”, p.245, Ridan Publishing
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There is a cruelty that lurks in some men’s souls which is only released when they have other men in their power.
-- Morgan LlywelynSource : Morgan Llywelyn (2010). “1921: The Great Novel of the Irish Civil War”, p.195, Macmillan
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We can never be gods, after all--but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.
-- N.K. JemisinSource : N. K. Jemisin (2010). “The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms”, p.52, Hachette UK
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It’s not just about being against cruelty. It’s about being for compassion.
-- Nathan Runkle -
Cruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves.
-- Paul Tillich -
All just laws condemn cruelty.
-- Pedro Calderon de la Barca -
Reason cannot save us, nothing can; but reason can mitigate the cruelty of living.
-- Philip RieffSource : Philip Rieff (1979). “Freud: The Mind of the Moralist”, p.12, University of Chicago Press
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Although I can't stop all cruelty to living creatures on the planet, I can be kinder to every living creature in my life.
-- River Phoenix -
In a cruel land, you either learned to laugh at cruelty or spent your life weeping.
-- Robert Jordan -
Cruelty is a part of nature, at least of human nature, but it is the one thing that seems unnatural to us.
-- Robinson Jeffers -
Cruelty is one fashion statement we can all do without.
-- Rue McClanahan -
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One of the ill effects of cruelty is that it makes the bystanders cruel.
-- Sir Fowell Buxton, 1st Baronet -
too great pity is the greatest cruelty.
-- St. Catherine of Siena -
The strangest thing about life is not its frightful cruelty, but that it can be gentle.
-- Storm JamesonSource : Storm Jameson (2011). “The Journal of Mary Hervey Russell”, p.39, A&C Black
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What I do not know and cannot even hope to understand before I die is why human beings are willfully, coldly, matter-of-factly cruel to each other ... What nerve has atrophied in the torturer, or worse is sensually moved?
-- Storm Jameson -
Love compels cruelty To those who do not understand love.
-- T. S. Eliot -
All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.
-- Tennessee WilliamsSource : Tennessee Williams (1971). “The Theatre of Tennessee Williams: The milk train doesn't stop here anymore. Kingdom of Earth (The seven descents of Myrtle). Small craft warnings. The two-character play”, p.10, New Directions Publishing
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Deliberate cruelty is unforgivable. --Blanche Dubois
-- Tennessee Williams -
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What is it the Bible teaches us? -- rapine, cruelty, and murder.
-- Thomas Paine -
I traded cowardice for cruelty; I traded weakness for ferocity.
-- Veronica Roth -
There is no society for the prevention of cruelty to women.
-- Voltairine de CleyreSource : Voltairine de Cleyre (2012). “Exquisite Rebel: The Essays of Voltairine de Cleyre -- Anarchist, Feminist, Genius”, p.233, SUNY Press
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Evil almost always starts with small cruelties.
-- Will SchwalbeSource : Will Schwalbe (2012). “The End of Your Life Book Club”, p.130, Vintage
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I must be cruel only to be kind; Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
-- William Shakespeare -
I always felt that with luxury came cruelty. I do my best to live a happy, prosperous life, but I don't indulge in a lot of luxury.
-- Alison Eastwood -
Laws can be wrong and laws can be cruel. And the people who live only by the law are both wrong and cruel.
-- Ardel WraySource : "Fictional character: Thea". "Isle of the Dead", www.imdb.com. 1945.
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Love and freedom are such hideous words. So many cruelties have been done in their name.
-- Joseph O'ConnorSource : Joseph O'Connor, Random House UK (2004). “Star of the Sea”, p.381, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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Compassion to an offender who has grossly violated the laws is, in effect, a cruelty to the peaceable subject who has observed them.
-- JuniusSource : Junius (1807). “Junius: Stat nominis umbra”, p.141
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We, as human beings, have the capacity for extreme cruelty.
-- Lupita Nyong'o -
I can't say I'm anything like a devoted animal rights activist, but I certainly oppose cruelty to animals.
-- Robert Paul Weston -
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Is the capacity for cruelty inherent in all of us?
-- Soledad O'Brien -
It’s not just about being against cruelty. It’s about being for compassion.
-- Nathan Runkle -
To exult over the miseries of an unhappy creature is inhuman.
-- Hugh BlairSource : Hugh Blair, Alfred Howard (Esq.) (1810). “The Beauties of Blair: Consisting of Selections from His Works”, p.18
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Beauty is cruel, cruelty is beautiful.
-- Kate CannSource : Kate Cann (2011). “Possessed”, p.97, Scholastic Inc.
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