Damage

“ Common humanity calls upon us to do as little damage as possible. You know your anatomy sufficiently well to avoid inflicting a wound upon a vital part, and can so arrange that your blows shall incapacitate rather than functionally derange. ”

“ He will rob it even if he means to remain upon it—driven on by present distress, and anxious to put off the day of defalcation and arrear. The damage is often difficult of detection—not easily calculated, not easily to be proved ”

“ In the order of damages, containing rules how to tax the damages done by man or beast, or other casualties, their distinctions are as nice as their cases are numerous. What beasts are innocent and what convict. ”

“ To this class belong, for example, anger against the object, which serves as explanation of a group of so-called malicious damages, such as arson, etc. Everybody, even though not particularly lively, remembers instances in which he fell into great and inexplicable rage against an object when the latter set in his way some special difficulties or caused him pain ”

“ The term "injury" I use this term in a somewhat peculiar sense, to signify any moral influence or physical force exerted by one human being upon another, the legitimate effect of which is to destroy or impair life, to destroy or impair the physical faculties, to destroy or impair the intellectual powers, to destroy, impair or pervert the moral and religious sentiment, or to destroy or impair the absolute welfare, all things considered, of the person on whom such influence or force is exerted ”

“ How will your delicate frame bear the agony when thrown alive into the burning pile? Then, when the hot fire slowly seizes on each writhing limb, and every scorched nerve overwhelms your soul with agonising torments, then—when too late, you will repent your refusal of my proffered mercy. ”

“ For if thou chance to close thy eyes for ever, a victim to the maddened attack of the men-at-arms; -- by whatsoever doom thy breath be cut off, by sword or disease, by sea or soil, I forswear every wanton and corrupt flame, and vow myself to a death like thine; that they who were bound by one marriage-union may be embraced in one and the same punishment. ”

“ They are set round about her, as keepers of fields: because she hath provoked me to wrath, saith the Lord.
4:18. Thy ways, and thy devices have brought these things upon thee: this is thy wickedness, because it is bitter, because it hath touched thy heart.
4:19. My bowels, my bowels are in pain, the senses of my heart are troubled within me, I will not hold my peace, for my soul hath heard the sound of the trumpet, the cry of battle.
4:20. Destruction upon destruction is called for, and all the earth is laid waste: my tents are destroyed on a sudden, and my pavilions in a moment. ”

“ An injury, an offence, like that black blood gradually takes on all the colors,--hate, contempt, anger, self-pity, pain at the wrong, a desire to return evil for evil, and again to let all go to wreck and ruin. ”

“ It was otherwise with my antagonists: the last that had fallen now ceased to groan: their huge limbs, inured to combat and war-worn, were useless to their own defence, and to the injury of others.
The destruction that I witnessed was vast—Three beings, full of energy and heroism, endowed with minds strenuous and lofty, poured out their lives before me: I was the instrument of their destruction—this scene of carnage and blood was laid by me ”

“ Wrath, gealosie, griefe, loue do thus expell:
2 Wrath is a fire, and gealosie a weede,
Griefe is a flood, and loue a monster fell;
4 The fire of sparkes, the weede of little seede,
The flood of drops, the Monster filth did breede:
6 But sparks, seed, drops, and filth do thus delay;
The sparks soone quench, the springing seed +outweed+
8 The drops dry vp, and filth wipe cleane away:
So shall wrath, gealosie, griefe, loue dye and decay. ”

“ What puts it into the heart or the head of the assailed party to repel injury with injury? It is like begetting its like: injury suggesting, prompting, and producing injury. No better way is thought of or desired, than life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, blow for blow, force for force, injury for injury. ”

“ But in negation, as in fire, there is a destructive power, and how to keep it in bounds, how to tell it where to stop, when that which it must destroy, and that which it must spare are often inseparably welded together? Here it is that the often-noticed tragical aspect of human life comes in: for action we require will, and for action we require thought ”

“ I deplore, as a citizen of that world, the general devastation, the blood that has been shed in the field or on the scaffold, and the stupendous destruction that has overwhelmed a great nation.—While I can yet contemplate the minuti to feel the distresses of many amiable individuals—from these may you, my dear friend, have now escaped ”

“ Of Heavn's displeasure, in its sheath was stay'd,
A flame succeeds, its furious ravage spread,
By wrath first kindled, and by justice fed:
So wide it rag'd, that scarce its quenchless sweep,
Would heed the limits of the watry deep.
Ah! who shall stay its force, or crush its power? ”

“ It is destruction, the child's pleasure, the unmaking of what one could not possibly make, smashing, breaking up, dashing to pieces, vandalism applied to the living works of nature, leading to their eternal perishing, with a hideous void in their stead. ”

“ Threatened destruction would not involve pain unless that threatened destruction were being resisted; so that the reaction which pain is supposed to cause must already be taking place before pain can be felt. ”

“ Then he said: “Whereas blood rained on you, many men’s blood shall be shed, yours and others; but when ye heard a great din, then ye must have been shown the crack of doom, and ye shall all die speedily. ”

“ Torture and carnage, greed of danger, fury of destruction, obstinate and frenzied bravery of an over-strong temperament, the unchaining of the butcherly instincts—such traits meet us at every step in the old Sagas. ”

“ Note, Those who flee from God have woes sent after them, and are, without doubt, in a woeful case. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against them; the word of God says, Woe to them! And observe what follows immediately, Destruction unto them! Note, The woes of God's word have real effects; destruction makes them good. The judgments of his hand shall verify the judgments of his mouth. Those whom he curses, and pronounces woeful, they are cursed, they are woeful indeed. ”

“ By the wild torch of rashness, sprung to life.
Eternal Justice saw, and was incens'd;
And suffer'd them to rage; and lo! the flame
Has caught our fairest domes; it burns—it spreads,
And who shall quench it? ”

“ Their persecuting the apostles, and forbidding them to speak to the Gentiles, filled up their sin, and brought wrath upon them to the uttermost, 1 Thess. ii. 15, 16. That wrath is here compared, (1.) To consuming fire, which goes before him, and burns up his enemies, that have made themselves like chaff and stubble, and have set the briers and thorns before him in battle, Isa. xxvii. 4. This fire of divine wrath will not only burn the rubbish upon the hills, but will even melt the hills themselves like wax, v. 5. When our God appears as a consuming fire even rocks will be wax before him. ”

“ Let us think of a man, with murderous intent in his heart, striking with a dagger at his enemy. He makes a red wound in his victim's breast; at the same instant he paints, in his own mind, a picture of that wound: a picture dynamic with all the fierce will-power he has put into his murderous blow. ”

“ A man meets with an accident—he is mortally wounded in battle—crushed by a railway accident—burnt in a fire—all but drowned in water—sick of a fatal malady lingering with vain hopes and vainer love of life—the marked victim of consumption—these all have their immediate and most excruciating tortures benumbed or alleviated by the skill of the physician ”

“ How often shall the lamp of the wicked be put out, and a deluge come upon them, and He shall distribute the sorrows of His wrath? They shall be as chaff before the face of the wind, and as ashes which the whirlwind scattereth. ”

“ What danger then, death, wrath, or wreck can move
More pregnant cause of tears than this I prove?
If Adam sought a veil to scarf his sin,
Taught by his fall to fear a scourging hand;
If men shall wish that hills should wrap them in,
When crimes in final doom come to be scann'd ”

“ Dragging with her one woman who was paralysed with fright, she induced the others to follow her, and when they were out of the line of fire, proceeded to examine the terrific wounds from which one and all declared themselves to be suffering. ”

“ Wound upon wound, and shame on shame espieth,
Desire of vengeance so o’ercame his senses,
That he forgot all dangers, all defences.
XLVI
Uniting force extreme, with endless wrath,
Supporting both with youth and strength untired,
His thundering blows so fast about he layeth,
That skies and earth the flying sparkles fired ”

“ And such folk as can heal and cure came to examine into their wounds and to tend them that night, for they could do nothing more for them, so severe and so deadly were the stabs and the thrusts, and the gashes of the many wounds that they had, than to apply to them spells and incantations and charms, in order to staunch their blood, and their bleeding mortal wounds. ”

“ For some time, in order that you might expiate your unworthy acts, you suffered hundreds of sorts of injuries and tasted a thousand species of poisons and misfortunes, so much that, eventually, through scarcity of grain and attacks of misfortunes and blight, your business ended in your losing your lives, and the knife of the enemy reached your bones. ”

“ If you have such tender feelings about the dangers and troubles of others, how great must be the estimation you place upon the losses and sufferings of our people! Streams of blood, and a stream of tears for every drop of blood ”

“ As if the Lord had said, It is more than probable, that I shall quickly see as much cause, "all flesh corrupting all their ways before Me," to drown the world with a second deluge, as I did for the first: the foulness of the world, will quickly call for another washing. ”

“ On each man's emaciated face, a look of agony, and on the canvas-clad back of one man, a great stain of wet blood from a raw wound caused by the cutting and rubbing of the stone-laden knapsack. Each man wore a fatigue-uniform, filthy beyond description. ”

“ As for the head of those that compass me about, let the mischief of their own lips cover them; let burning coals fall upon them ... let them be cast into the fire; into deep pits, that they rise not up again. Let destruction come upon him unawares ”

“ They throw themselves upon the ground, wrap their faces and bodies in their mantles, shriek and sob aloud, wave their arms frantically in the air, and finally gash and scar their skin with long, deep cuts, which they fill in with charcoal until they become indelible records of the loss they have sustained. ”

“ These are the ruins of thy friends, wars, or wicked frauds, thefts with bloodshed: the body is vexed with sores, and groaning and wailing is indulged; whether a slight disease invade thee, or thou art held down by long sickness, or thou art bereaved of thy children, or thou mournest over a lost wife. ”

“ It may calm the apprehension of calamity in the most susceptible heart to see how quick a bound nature has set to the utmost infliction of malice. We rapidly approach a brink over which no enemy can follow us. ”

“ Why speak I of such deeds as the impaling or sawing of men alive, the tearing of the flesh in pieces with iron pincers or the broiling of it, chop by chop, with candles, or the jambing of skulls as flat as a slate, in a press, and all the most frightful degradation the earth ever witnessed? ”

“ To a greater or less extent all these schemes to rescue man from the unquenchable fire and the gnawings of the undying worm, or to justify their infliction, are evoked by shame or horror at the extreme severity of the penalty, and express the modifications which human wisdom and tenderness would interpose or substitute. ”

“ The slow torture of which we read in histories of early times was like to this. Each day a weight was added to that already lying on the breast of a strong man, bound on his back by the cords of his oppressors, until relief and destruction came together, and the man was crushed ”

“ Can we have here one of those blind and extreme precautions which, ignoring the cause of the evil, overstep the remedy; and, in the endeavour to prevent an unfortunate accident, bring about a catastrophe? ”

“ The number and character of the wounds,—consisting of blows, cuts, and gashes, showed that they had been inflicted by some one out of his senses; for life must have been extinct before half of them could have been given. ”

“ Recently, when you have laid violent hands upon my person, and endangered my life, I said it was violence of temper, not malignity of heart, and I resolved, for your sake and mine, to keep our secret, and to bear with it. ”

“ Stamping feet, curses, grunts, groans, the soft sound of fist on flesh, the scraping of squirming masses of men going this way and that, the heavy breathing and other sounds of conflict filled the dusty, smoky air. ”

“ The injury that is problematic, or general, or that falls in undefined ways upon unknown persons, is resented feebly, or not at all. The fiend who should rack his victim with torments such as typhoid inflicts would be torn to pieces. ”