| | |

cruelty quotes

edits filters

“For man is the cruellest animal.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
“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'
“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
“People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“Never . . . be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices . . . and I can always be hopeful of you.” Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
“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
“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
“Pity is the virtue of the law, and none but tyrants use it cruelly.” William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens
“there is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for.” Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
“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
“When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.” William Shakespeare, Henry V
“Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel.” Jack London, The Star Rover
“But some things are not forgivable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable. It is the one unforgivable thing in my opinion and it is the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty.” Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
“I must be cruel, only to be kind: Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.” William Shakespeare, Hamlet
“He's not a rough diamond—a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic: he's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man.” Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
“the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.” Mahatma Gandhi, The Story of my Experiments with Truth
“Terror made me cruel” Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
“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
“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
“The cruelty of fooled honesty is often great after enlightenment, and it was mighty in Clare now.” Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles
“I know life is hard, I think everyone knows that in their hearts, but why does it have to be cruel, as well? Why does it have to bite?” Stephen King, 11/22/63
“It was woman that taught me cruelty, and on woman therefore I have exercised it; but not upon such as thou.” Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
“I like to hurt people too. I can make the cruelest choice. The difference is, sometimes I don't, and you always do, and that makes you evil.” Veronica Roth, Allegiant
“Cruelty does not make a person dishonest, the same way bravery does not make a person kind.” Veronica Roth, Insurgent
“April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain.” T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

Related topics

evil woman pity meanness animals man kindness Christianity religion stupidity men hope hypocrisy pain slavery honesty intelligence forgiveness bravery slaveholders

Related authors

Pope Francis (1)
William Shakespeare (3)
Veronica Roth (2)
Emily Brontë (2)
Friedrich Nietzsche (1)
Frederick Douglass (1)
Kurt Vonnegut (1)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1)
J. R. R. Tolkien (1)
Tennessee Williams (1)
Jack London (1)
Haruki Murakami (1)
Mahatma Gandhi (1)
Stephen King (1)
Charles Dickens (1)
Ernest Hemingway (1)
Thomas Hardy (1)
Winston Churchill (1)
Edgar Rice Burroughs (1)
Walter Scott (1)

Related sources

A Streetcar Named Desire (1)
Wuthering Heights (2)
Slaughterhouse-Five (1)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1)
Hamlet (1)
David Copperfield (1)
The Story of my Experiments with Truth (1)
The Brothers Karamazov (1)
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1)
The Old Man and the Sea (1)
Timon of Athens (1)
The Star Rover (1)
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1)
The Hobbit (1)
Henry V (1)
Tarzan of the Apes (1)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1)
Ivanhoe (1)
11/22/63 (1)
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1)