Thomas Jefferson Quotes

I was sitting by Dr. Franklin who perceived that I was not insensitive to these mutilations.

The abrupt and sudden death of my wife has taken a severe emotional and psychic toll on me. On top of that, some people have stooped so low that they have tried to use my personal tragedy for their personal benefit.

Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe, how much it altered her person for the worse.

In life and art, there are distinctions to be made between what an act of cruelty consists of.

The psychology of brutality was worse than the beatings.

In order to be cruel we have to close our hearts to the suffering of the other.

They promptly tore his fingernails out and he started telling things.

Only the tortured can understand those who have been tortured.

Surly bleeding hearts are better than bleeding bodies.

I've never been to war, and I would never presume to fully understand the horrors that that kind of experience can impart.

If you feel more emotion looking at a picture of queuing lorries than a picture of desperate humans living in a lay-by, you need to check your bedtime routine for someone beating you round the head with a meat tenderiser.

It still hurts," she whispered. "Even when you're doing it for someone else, that doesn't stop your ribs from getting cracked, or your wrist swelling, or your cuts from bleeding.

How can we speak of right and justice if we take an innocent creature and shed its blood? How can we pray to God for mercy if we ourselves have no mercy? Nobel laureate in literature.

Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.

Scenes of blood and cruelty are shocking to our ear and heart. What man has nerve to do, man has not nerve to hear.

I don't understand how people can take a gentle, loving life and treat it with such cruelty.

Unlike the vast majority of people, I've been locked in a box like an animal and I've also been on the receiving end of bloody thrashings, so I feel uniquely qualified to judge which is worse.

When one is innocent of pain, of the havoc it can wreak, one is never cruel. Cruelty is born of pain, of a need to hurt in turn.

Grief, of course, is not something that operates according to a specific time frame, and it seems cold to suggest otherwise. Yet when we do not grasp that God is present in pain, we eventually insist on victory or, worse, blame the sufferer for not "getting over it" fast enough. This is more than a failure to extend compassion; it's an exercise in cruelty.

I watched as that kid died. In his last few seconds there was pure terror in his eyes. You can't do that. You can't do that to a person. I don't care what anybody tells me, I don't care how many people go crazy and die, I don't care if the whole shuck human race ends. Even if that was the only thing that had to happen to find the cure, I'd still be against it.

By then Esthappen and Rahel had learned that the world had other ways of breaking men. They were already familiar with the smell. Sicksweet. Like old roses on a breeze.

Even the most sensitive person can get used to even the most insensitive thing. Cruelty isn’t a personality trait. Cruelty is a habit.

The essence of war is insanity. Destruction, death, women widowed, children orphaned, lands plundered, property destroyed, lives decimated - it's all bad.

Words that are saturated with lies or atrocity, do not easily resume life.

We are all victims because of the circumstances, but I'm not sure what to say to any one who has lost a loved one. I know the feeling myself, and words just don't do much to ease the pain.