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Cruelty quotes

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“For man is the cruellest animal.” Friedrich Nietzsche, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” - 1891

“Men were indeed more foolish and more cruel than the beasts of the jungle! How fortunate was he who lived in the peace and security of the great forest!” Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes” - 1912

“I must be cruel, only to be kind: Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.” William Shakespeare, “Hamlet” - 1623

“When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.” William Shakespeare, “Henry V” - 1600

“Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel?” Ernest Hemingway, “The Old Man and the Sea” - 1952

“Pity is the virtue of the law, and none but tyrants use it cruelly.” William Shakespeare, “Timon of Athens” - 1623

“It is vain to recount further the catalogue of miseries. In earlier ages such horrors remain unknown because unrecorded. Just enough flickering light plays upon this infernal scene to give us the sense of its utter desolation and hopeless...” Winston Churchill, “A History of the English-Speaking Peoples” - 1956

“The cruelty of fooled honesty is often great after enlightenment, and it was mighty in Clare now.” Thomas Hardy, “Tess of the d'Urbervilles” - 1891

“It was woman that taught me cruelty, and on woman therefore I have exercised it; but not upon such as thou.” Walter Scott, “Ivanhoe” - 1820

“For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others.” Frederick Douglass, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” - 1845

“The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to leam, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel.” Kurt Vonnegut, “Slaughterhouse-Five” - 1969

“Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones.” J. R. R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit” - 1937

“He's not a rough diamond—a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic: he's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man.” Emily Brontë, “Wuthering Heights” - 1847

“Moreover, when our hearts are authentically open to universal communion, this sense of fraternity excludes nothing and no one. It follows that our indifference or cruelty towards fellow creatures of this world sooner or later affects the...” Pope Francis, “Laudato si'” - 24 May 2015

Related topics

animals roughness men pity hypocrisy evil honesty man slavery woman bad kindness cleverness religion sea gentleness birds beast tyrants misery

Related authors

William Shakespeare (3)
Ernest Hemingway (1)
Winston Churchill (1)
Thomas Hardy (1)
Walter Scott (1)
Friedrich Nietzsche (1)
Edgar Rice Burroughs (1)
Frederick Douglass (1)
Kurt Vonnegut (1)
J. R. R. Tolkien (1)
Emily Brontë (1)
Pope Francis (1)

Related sources

Hamlet (1)
Henry V (1)
The Old Man and the Sea (1)
Timon of Athens (1)
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1)
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1)
Ivanhoe (1)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1)
Tarzan of the Apes (1)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1)
Slaughterhouse-Five (1)
The Hobbit (1)
Wuthering Heights (1)
Laudato si' (1)